Don't Look Back — Genesis 18-19

0:00 Today's scripture comes from the nineteenth chapter of the book of Genesis. Genesis chapter 19. This is not the happiest passage in the Bible that I could have been asked to speak on. If you are visiting here today, well, welcome. First of all, welcome.

0:32 And this is not one of these messages that is about happiness and joy all that good stuff. Right? There are just some things in the Bible that are not all that cheery. But, you know, as I've said before, we make no apologies for what is in this book. I just have to preach what is in here because it is the inspired Word of God.

0:56 I can't just skip over passages that are unpleasant. So we're going to read out of chapter 19 today. Now, before we do this, I'm just going to try and use a little bit of technology. I almost never use technology when I'm speaking because it rarely ever works for me. Right?

1:20 And I don't want to be fumbling around here for a while, but I want to show some pictures today. Show some pictures today. And what I want to drive home is this point because it's related to the message. That is that ever since March 18, I have taken on a new identity, a new identity, and that is the identity of a father. And in many ways, and I'm sure you can relate to this more than I can, Having a child changed my life far more, even than getting married, for example.

2:00 Identity of fatherhood has been a challenge for me to take on. And I wanted to talk about some of the ways that my identity of a father has changed my day to day life. Because we're going to look at the identity of Lot today. So here is a young couple. This could be Megan and I, if we were better looking.

2:24 Well, should say if I was better looking. Sorry. Sorry. Know, this is how Megan and I used to enjoy dinner. Right?

2:35 It was always romantic. And, you know, here... Here's the here's the guy feeding her, and they've got the candles lit. Right? This is how this is how food used to be before I had a a child.

2:46 Now Now, is what food is like. Alright? I have mastered the art of eating food with one hand and holding little Paul in the other and Megan is even better at this than me because she can hold little Paul, feed herself and feed him all at the same time. Right? It's remarkable.

3:03 It's remarkable. That's how he has sort of changed our life with respect to eating. How about like listening to music? Right? Here again, this could be Megan listening to the old records out in the park, just enjoying the peaceful tranquility of music.

3:20 And and and we still love music now. Right? It's not that that has gone away, but the kind of music that we enjoy has changed a little bit. Right? Because little Paul just doesn't know the words to the songs.

3:36 And so he just kind of hollers and makes a bunch of noise. And then we kind of play along. So that's changed. That's a new identity for me. I see Josh is taking notes.

3:45 This is good. Right? You're gonna keep this keep this in mind. How about something like... I used to enjoy...

3:54 I really enjoyed coffee. Right? I had the French press, and I would grind the beans the right way, and I would drink it at the perfect temperature. Right? I love the aroma of it.

4:04 Maybe have a biscotti along with it. Right? Now, I pretty much just drink coffee for the caffeine rush. It kind of gets me through another few hours of fatherhood. Right?

4:17 Not only that, but also I now drink it lukewarm because I don't want to spill hot coffee on little Paul, right? So I drink lukewarm coffee, kind of like that. I used to love to read while I was drinking coffee. I would read great books, you know. If I thought back to the last three books that I read before I became a father, they were written by people like Richard Foster, Ernest Hemingway, you know, great authors.

4:45 Here's my kind of reading right now. Go, dog, go. Where are those dogs going? They are going to that tree. What will they do there?

4:55 Will they play there? Will they work there? Right? It's really good. It's good stuff.

5:00 Classic. One more. Just bear with me for one more. I used to love to sleep. Right?

5:09 I will confess that I probably slept more than I should have. Maybe even bordering on, I don't know, what is the sin of sleeping too much? Sloth or something, right? I don't know. I was like a sloth.

5:21 Would really enjoy sleeping. And of course, that has changed. Now we have this little guy and I can just see him saying that to me. I see him saying, about 11:00, he's looking me right in the eye. He's all swaddled up.

5:35 Anyway, that's how my identity as a father is different than my identity as a single person. That's all the technology I have. Now what does that have to do with Sodom and Gomorrah? What does that have to do with Sodom and Gomorrah? Alright.

6:18 Please turn into your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet, and you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, no, no, but we will spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strongly, so they turned into him and entered into his house, and there he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. And they ate. Now we're going to step back for a minute and ask this question, who is this Lot and how did he end up living in Sodom?

6:47 So it has always been the plan of God to separate for himself a group of people who will be a testimony of him in this ungodly world. So we see several chapters ago in Genesis that God calls this family led by Abraham out of their original home and have that family live separately, live intense, intense. The... They're they're not supposed to live in the cities. They're not supposed to be mingling with the ungodly, because if they did that, then the testimony of God that they were supposed to be preserving would somehow get polluted.

7:28 So Abraham hears this call of God, and he separates himself from his old life. He obeys, even though he doesn't know where he's going, and he goes forth into the wilderness. He leads his family, and Lot went with him. Okay? Now this theme of separation from the world appears throughout scripture.

7:49 As early as the fall of man, God is speaking to the serpent and says what? I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your children and her children. So right from the get go, there has been a division between the people of God and the ungodly world. Or think about when God is speaking to Pharaoh and he says, I will put a division between my people and your people. James four:four.

8:22 Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? It seems that in all times and places, God is calling his people to separation from the love of the world. So Lot follows Abraham into the wilderness, and he lives with him for some time until there just wasn't enough space for all their flocks and cattle and their people. It's like in the old Westerns, this town ain't big enough for the both of us. Right?

8:52 Except instead of having a shootout to solve that issue, Abraham says to Lot, why don't you just pick out some land and you and your people go go that direction and we'll go the other? And in Genesis thirteen twelve, it says, Abraham dwelled in the land of Canaan and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. So this was Lot's first step away from the wilderness of God and toward the cities that were ruled by Satan. He began to see Sodom as something desirable, as something comfortable. And eventually, he moves into the city of Sodom himself.

9:32 He's he's left this separated path on which he was supposed to live. It doesn't necessarily mean that he ceased to be a good man, but he did cease to be a faithful witness for God. Psalm one:one, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. So there's a pattern here, right? I'm sure you have noticed this before.

10:04 First, you are casually walking towards sin. Next, you are standing in the company of sinners. And the next thing you know, you are sitting right there participating with them in the sin. Lot has begun this journey. In Genesis thirteen ten, he is described as looking toward Sodom.

10:22 Ah, that looks pretty good over there. In Genesis thirteen twelve, he has pitched his tent toward Sodom. By Genesis fourteen twelve, he is no longer in a tent near Sodom, he is living in a house inside the city itself. So that's where Lot came from. Verse four.

11:16 Don't do this wicked thing. I got a better idea. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. Isn't that a better plan right there?

11:30 But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof. How often do we flee one sin just to get into another? That's kind of what is going on here. They have come under protection of my roof. Get out of our way, the men replied.

11:46 You came here as a foreigner, and now you want to play the judge. We will treat you worse than them. They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door, but the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness, so they could not find the door. The two men said to Lot, do you have anyone else here, sons in law, sons or daughters, or anywhere else in the city who belongs to you?

12:15 Get them out of here because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry of the Lord against its people is so great, he has sent us to destroy it. Now, so when some people have asked me about Sodom and Gomorrah, the question I most often get is, why did God destroy these cities? And that is kind of a hard question to answer, not only because people actually mean two different things when they ask me that question. Sometimes people mean, why did God destroy these cities and not some other cities we could think of where wickedness abounds?

13:04 Right? In other words, why does God destroy Sodom And Gomorrah but not Las Vegas, Nevada? Or why does he destroy Sodom And Gomorrah and not Illyria? Right? There there...

13:15 Is is there something peculiar about these cities? And, anyway, since when has it been God's policy to destroy cities based on how bad the citizens are? This seems very strange. And if it is God's policy to destroy cities based on how bad the citizens are, just how bad do you have to be to get destroyed? Right?

13:39 These are the kinds of questions I've been asked, mainly by junior high bible students, but also also by adults. I don't know why God deemed it necessary to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Part of that is because I probably am not a biblical scholar, I'm not qualified to answer that question. You should go to somebody who has studied theology their whole life. They can probably give you more insight to it.

14:09 But I do know this, the only reason God does not destroy us is because of his goodness and mercy. Second Peter chapter three verse nine, God is long suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. That's good. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. So I'm not exactly sure why the Lord, in his wisdom, decided to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but preserves me except for his mercy.

14:53 I don't really think that there's some level of badness that once you reach it, God flips the switch and destroys you. That doesn't seem to be the message of this section of Scripture. We're told in Genesis chapter 18, the Lord said, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave. Now it makes me wonder, who was crying out against Sodom and Gomorrah? That could be something for homework.

15:19 The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave. I will go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me, and if not, I will know. So God Himself personally assessed the situation in Sodom and Gomorrah and decided in his wisdom that the just thing to do is to destroy those cities. Now some people think that these two angels who came into Sodom and Gomorrah were on some kind of a fact finding mission, that they were there to decide, are the people bad enough to be destroyed? Right?

15:51 And then they see this riot and they say, yeah, you're bad enough. But that doesn't really seem to cover all the facts because Sodom and Gomorrah both get destroyed. And as far as we know, the angels only visit Sodom. Not only that, the angels are talking to Lot as if the decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah was already a done deal when they arrived. They said, we have come to destroy this place.

16:12 We didn't come to see how bad you were, and we decided you were pretty bad, so we destroyed you. Right? That has already been decided by God. I know this raises all kinds of theological questions, which we can look at another time. Sometimes the Lord tells us things in Scripture, and sometimes he does not tell us things.

16:31 And even if you might find it unsatisfying, anytime you ask a question that starts with the words, why did God, there's a very good chance you're not going to get that answer. And I just point you to when the Son of God was on the cross and said, Father, why have you forsaken me? No answer. So if God does not answer his own son in that situation, we should not expect him to answer all of our why questions. You hear that little Paul?

17:07 Right? Why, why, why? I don't know. Daddy does not know why. But the question the question why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah sometimes is asked a different way, and that is, was there a specific sin?

17:40 Is that my son? This is this is the PG 13 part, buddy. You better... That's right. You better get out.

17:50 All the men in the city were participating in this unholy riot. And a lot of people have looked at this passage and said, The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality, or what we used to call in the old days, sodomy. Sodomy. Right? I don't know if that word is still used anymore.

18:09 It's more of a legal term. And and this may partly be true. I'm not saying it wasn't. But I don't think that the point of this section of scripture is that god hates homosexuals. I think that there are church people who are very good at saying that, but I think that is missing the larger point of this passage.

18:29 God hates sin, and he is just in punishing it. But this one riot that took place here is not the only reason that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. I want you to look at an interesting passage. Ezekiel chapter 16. Ezekiel chapter 16.

19:04 Chapter 16, verse 49. I love to hear those pages turning. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom. She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

19:34 Isn't that an interesting remark on the sin of Sodom? In fact, I'm just gonna read this again, and I want you to think, does this remind you of any place you might know of today? Part of the reason Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed is because they had an abundance of food. They were proud, lazy, prosperous, and did not help the poor. I was shocked when I read that.

20:11 I mean, that kinda hits home. I have plenty of food. I am prideful, prosperous, lazy, and I do not help the poor. Verse 13. So now we're back in Genesis.

20:24 I would just let you think about that. Just let you think about that. Genesis 19... Okay. Now verse 13.

20:32 We are going to destroy this place. The outcry of the Lord against his people is so great, he has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons in law who had pledged to marry his daughters. He said, 'Hurry and get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy the city.' But his sons in law thought he was joking. I think that's a sad testimony on the testimony of Lot to his own family, that he goes to his sons-in-law and says, the Lord is going to destroy the city and they think he is kidding.

21:07 Right, the old man talking about God again, come on. Right? With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot saying, hurry, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you'll be swept away when the city is punished. When he hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters, it does not say his sons in law, his two daughters, and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. Now there's a bunch of important things in here which we don't have time to get into.

22:22 Is it because he wasn't as bad as the rest of the people in the city? In other words, are there some kind of degrees of sin? Here is a bunch of sinners, they were pretty bad. Lot wasn't quite as bad, so therefore he gets rescued. Was Lot truly righteous?

22:40 Remember Abraham asked God, what if you find five, 10, 50 righteous people in the city? God won't destroy it if he finds those righteous people. Romans three ten, for there is none none righteous. No, not one. Lot was just as deserving of destruction as the men of Sodom, worthy just of destruction as they were and as I am.

23:06 Now I know in two Peter, Lot is described twice as a righteous man. I have to believe that that is a different meaning of righteous than the word used in Romans. There is none righteous compared to God. Nobody, right? I think Lot was rescued, just as all of us are, simply out of the mercy of God.

23:32 Let's look at Romans one verse 28. Romans one verse 28. Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice those things are worthy of death, they not only do those things, but they give hearty approval to those who practice them.

24:33 Now at that point, I'm thinking, Yeah, those wicked people. They deserve judgment. Therefore, you have no excuse, you who judge. Oops. That's a turn of events right there.

24:49 I thought he was just about to condemn these wicked people. You have no excuse, you who pass judgment. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

25:06 In other words, people, nobody is innocent. Everybody is guilty of sin before God. It is very easy to point to people's sins that are more obviously visible than mine. Church people are very good at that, unfortunately. It is easy to point out your brother's sin when that sin is on the surface.

25:30 And all the while, I have this sin in my heart that nobody is pointing out. So why was Lot saved? God's mercy, for sure. I don't think he and his family have any exceptional goodness here. I do think that it was partly out of God's love for Abraham.

25:51 Abraham is Lot's uncle. He had pleaded with the Lord not to destroy the city. And God, in part, saves his family. Just as God does not save us today because of our righteousness, but because of his love for Jesus. You know, if we take nothing else out of this account, maybe this is it.

26:15 But the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is is really a picture of God's salvation. He saves Lot not because Lot is good, but because God is merciful. And I am not saved because I am good, but because Christ was the spotless lamb. Notice verse 16. When he lingered, the men took hold of his hand.

26:55 What is he doing? But isn't that like me? Isn't that like us? Many times I have come under conviction of some sin, but I delay repenting. I know I need to take care of something in my spiritual life, but there are other things to distract me.

27:16 Not necessarily other sins, just other things that keep me saying, I'll get around to that later. I think that's what Lot's doing here. And he might have died in Sodom had not the angels laid hold of his hand and brought him forth and saved him with fear. I think God would have been just in leaving Lot there to perish if Lot had just stuck around. So the salvation of even the most righteous people has to be attributed to God's mercy, not to their own goodness.

27:51 We are all saved by grace. God's power must be acknowledged in the bringing of all souls out of sin. As Matthew Henry said, If God did not bring us out of sin, we would never come out. We would linger in sin until we were also destroyed. Titus chapter three, verse five, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.

28:22 One time I heard a story, I've heard this story many times, that the Gospel is like a life preserver thrown to a drowning man. Have you heard that analogy before? The Gospel is like a life preserver thrown to a drowning man. You're drowning in the sea of sin. Here is the life preserver and all you have to do is reach out and grab hold.

28:49 There is a sense in which that is true and there is a sense in which that is not true. Because for many of us, I don't have the goodness inside of me to make the first move toward the life raft. In fact, the picture of salvation that I see in Scripture is God throws out the life raft, God jumps into the sea with me, God grabs me, throws me on the life raft, and drags me to safety. And that's what's happening here. Lot is taken by the hand from some angel and dragged out of Sodom.

29:27 In other words, my salvation is dependent on God from beginning to end. Verse 17. We only got ten minutes left. You can make it. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, Flee for your lives.

29:47 Don't look back and don't stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountains or you'll be swept away. But Lot said to them, no, my lords, please. Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. Oh, thank you.

30:00 Thank you. Thank you. But I can't flee to the mountains. Nope. This disaster will overtake me, and I will die.

30:08 Even though you just dragged me out by the hand, I really don't trust the plan you have now. Hey, look. Here is a town near enough to run to and it is small. Let me flee to it. It is very small, isn't it?

30:22 Then my life will be spared. He said to him, very well, I will grant this request too. I will not overthrow the town you speak of, but flee there quickly because I cannot do anything until you reach it. Now, there are three commands here in those five verses. The first one is don't look back.

30:42 The second one is don't stop on the plane. And the third one is flee to the mountains. And we all struggle with all three of these commands. In saying don't look back, Lot is being told, do not return to your life of sin. Don't look back.

31:14 Don't look back. I am really bad at that. I often look back. I overanalyze every decision. When Megan and I moved to Michigan State, it took me months to get comfortable there because I was looking back.

31:34 I kept thinking, what if we hadn't come up here? Wouldn't it been better if I had kept my old job, stayed living in that house? Maybe we maybe we should go back. Right? I kept looking back.

31:47 I continually was having thoughts of my old identity. Now I have this new identity, and that is of a father. Right? I have new responsibilities and new priorities. I have to take care of my family.

32:01 When little Paul cries in the middle of the night, I can't roll over and look at him and say, You know what, buddy? I'm giving up this new identity as a father. I'm going back to sleep. It doesn't work that way. He's hungry.

32:15 The new identity must kick in. I cannot look back. Cannot look back. So that's the first one. Don't look back.

32:22 Well, I failed at that one many times. Second, don't stop on the plane. What does that mean? This would be like trusting in myself or trusting in the world instead of trusting God. But this is exactly what Lot does.

32:35 I can't flee to the mountains. Look, here is a town for me to stay in. Please let me stay in the town. It's just a little town. I mean, this is kind of pitiful.

32:43 I just hear him kinda whining at these angels. Here, I wanna stay in this little town. It's... You know? God has intended him to live in the mountains, and he's trying to live in the valleys.

32:55 But we do this. Why don't I strive for the mountains of God? For me, there's always two reasons. One is fear, and the other is comfort. These planes aren't God's best for me, but it's what I'm comfortable with.

33:14 If I really turn my whole heart over to God, I don't really know what's going to happen. If I really said, Lord, not my will, but Thine be done, that's pretty scary because I don't know what God is going to do in his will. So I cling to what's comfortable. God is telling me I've got much more in store. You know, it says that the name of this little city in verse 22, it says the name of this city was Zor.

33:43 Zor. I've been to Zor. You know? Zor, Ohio. It's a real city.

33:49 It's small. That word small also means insignificant. Lot is trading the mountains of God for something insignificant. Verse 23. By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.

34:15 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew the cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land, but Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. I told you there's some strange stuff in this chapter, right? I think this is one of the strangest verses in the Bible. Imagine reading this for the first time.

34:46 Lot and his family are fleeing the city. Okay. I get that. God is raining down destruction. Alright?

34:59 And how did she become a pillar of salt? Whenever we read strange things like this in the Bible, some people's temptation is to try and explain them away. Well, it doesn't literally mean she became a pillar of salt. That's a figure of speech for she gave up her new life in the Lord. Right?

35:20 Or, you know, I bet I bet in the original Hebrew this meant something else, right? So I looked this up. It doesn't actually mean anything else. It just means she became a pillar of salt. And it doesn't have this wording like anything miraculous happened.

35:35 It's just kind of matter of fact. Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. The fact that Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt is historical truth, is also confirmed by the words of Jesus, who said in Luke chapter 17, remember Lot's wife. Right? Now, if Jesus refers to something as having actually happened, I bet it actually happened.

36:01 Right? This is why I don't have to worry about the biological implications of Jonah living inside a great fish. If if if Jesus thought that it was true, it was probably true. Right? So, you know, you can picture the ashes and the fiery debris raining down and the perishing cities, and I don't know how she became a pillar of salt.

36:22 Maybe maybe she became a pillar of salt instantly, or it's pretty salty there. Maybe she died and was covered in salt. Don't know. It doesn't matter. It's interesting from a geologic point of view, but but the point is she became a pillar of salt.

36:34 Now, how this happened is suggested by the words his wife looked back from behind him. This indicates that Lot's wife was where? Behind him. And the wording was kind of like lagging behind with longing. It wasn't that she was just slow.

36:50 She didn't want to be there. She was not only some distance behind the others physically, but she was distant from them spiritually. And as she looked back with longing at her old identity, her body was out of Sodom but her heart was back in the city. Look at, here's our last passage for today, Luke chapter 17. Luke 17 verse 31.

37:29 This is the context in which Jesus says to remember Lot's wife. Why are we supposed to remember her? Luke seventeen thirty one, On that day, the one who is on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down and take them out. And likewise, the one who is in the field must not turn back. Remember Lot's wife.

37:50 Whoever seeks to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. Jesus is using her as a warning against turning back from our profession of faith. She disobeyed an express command. The angels told them, don't look back. But she also displays unbelief.

38:11 Maybe she questioned, is Sodom really gonna be destroyed? Maybe we should've stayed there. Maybe we could've been safe there. She looks back on her old neighbors, her old home, her old way of living. It's easy to play...

38:27 Blame her. I will say just as an aside, it is partly Lot's fault that his wife was destroyed. You know, I think fathers and husbands ought to take the lead in the management of their families. I shouldn't ever say, oh, I can't manage my family. Whatever they do spiritually, that's their own business.

38:48 Remember Eli? Eli kind of failed to take care of his family. He didn't want to confront his wicked sons. And what did his weakness cost him? God destroyed his family.

39:00 Right? When Christian men leave their families to go any way they choose, they are going against the will of God. And if our children or our wives should perish because of my sins, Even if I am saved, that will be a horrible day. If Lot had never gone to Sodom, I doubt his wife would have perished there. He was called to a new identity, but she wanted the old one back.

39:30 This reminds me of the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians three thirteen, Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but this one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind. And reaching forward to what is ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Today, you have the opportunity for new identity, to let Jesus take you by the hand and bring you to safety. And once you're on that path that leads to glory, the word is don't look back. Father, thank you for your word to us this morning.