Lord, we're gathered this morning as a people who believe You. We trust Your Word and we trust in Your goodness. We trust in Your mercy. We trust in Your promises, the promises You gave to Abraham. Isaac and Jacob. The promises you gave to the apostles and the prophets and others. So many of them to our benefit. Everything in your word is true. And we know Lord that you are slow to anger. We also know that Your hand is not too short to save. Your arm is not too short to save anyone. You desire people to come to repentance and faith, to a place where they believe You. And so Lord, as we look to Your Word today, help us to understand ultimately your mercy, your love, your goodness, and the hope we have in our Savior Jesus Christ. Help us to have a heart for those around us that walk around so ignorant, so defiant, so disobedient. Lord, we pray for those neighbors of ours, those that we love, those even in our own families that are far from you, God, that they would come to the truth and live. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. I shudder as I go through this morning with you. Genesis chapter 19, this is perhaps one of the darkest sections in all of Scripture. It is hard. rivaled only by a couple other places. We see in the end in the book of Revelation and the judgment ultimately, and we see before this when we were looking at Noah and the destruction of this earth, all but eight were destroyed. And in a like manner, God gives us Sodom and Gomorrah as an example for us. And so let's look here and we already went through the first verses here in chapter 19, verse 22. So we're not going to rehash that. We already talked about the angels coming and the people in the town wanting to have their way with what they thought were men. We saw the depravity there. And we see and have seen the call to escape this life. And now we're picking it up in 1923 this morning. After the angels grab Lot, he and his wife and two daughters with them, and are rushing out. And here's what it says in 23. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And He overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley. And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace." So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. I'm going to stop there, and then we'll pick up here the rest of the chapter in just a little bit. A little historical background about this area. Archaeologists have discovered thousands of bodies destroyed in this location. Josephus, a historian writer during the time of Christ, said that the ruins could still be seen in his day. It was about 1,600 or 1,700 years later. There are a lot of brimstone, which is the old name for sulfur, falls in these cities. A man that I know personally took a tour to Israel a number of years ago and his tour guide stopped the bus His tour guide happened to be a Christian, which is pretty rare. Most of the tour guides over there are Jewish. This happened to be a Christian and seemed to be a true believer and he stopped the bus and he told everybody to get out and they're getting out in this area that was completely desolate. He said, this man I know said, it looked like just a wasteland and the tour guide bent over and he picked up this rock and he handed it around and he said do you see this look at it what does it look like and he said it was like volcanic glass and he said then he said to the tour group he said this is where Sodom and Gomorrah were there was over a hundred thousand people that populated that area it was populated because it was a very fertile ground. It had great soil. Sulfur, the sulfur that is found there is unique and different from all the sulfur in the rest of the world. It's 90 to 95 percent pure. It's white. It's so pure you can light it on fire. And it burns a hot blue flame. And there are, like I said, lots of these sulfur balls in this area. There's a lot of ash here in this area as well, which 2 Peter 2.6 references Sodom and Gomorrah being destroyed and reduced to ash. The material of these cities' formation is calcium sulfate, which is limestone and sulfur together when they're heated. And the main building material in Israel is limestone. So you can see what happened. There are charcoal layers found in the strata of these cities. The amount of ash, charcoal, and calcium sulfate reveals overwhelming evidence of extreme heat. And there is no geothermal activity to explain this, meaning there is no volcano. And there never was, in the history of the world, any volcano in that area. Many unexplained shapes in these areas look like buildings, sphinxes, pyramids, and palaces. Because the Dead Sea Basin used to be like the Garden of Eden, as far as its fertileness, it was extremely desirable climate. That's why it was so populated. Good for agriculture. Now it's hard for us to understand this. It's hard for us, you know, we believe God. We've seen God work in our own lives. If you have put your trust in Jesus Christ, You've seen him work in your life. You've experienced repentance that's refreshing. And so you know, you know that he's real. You know he works. And yet when we read this, we go, wow, that's tough. That's tough. It's hard to swallow. And certainly when people in the world look at this story, they think this is ridiculous. They don't believe it at all. They write it off completely. I have some commentaries in my office that even write this off, which shows the quality of the commentary, I suppose. But bottom line is Sodom and Gomorrah were real places. and they were really wicked places. Perhaps there is no place in our society that we can even compare these places to. We can think of the most wicked places in America, you might think New Orleans during Mardi Gras time, or Las Vegas on any Tuesday, or Hollywood, or Could be Florida beaches, or it could be right here. It's kind of like a frog being dropped into a pot. I suppose that was Lott's condition in that he knew it was bad, but didn't know how bad it was. And the longer you live in it, the more you get used to it, And I don't know what he really thought, but I bet he didn't think it was as bad as it was. He didn't see the reality of it. Which should serve as a warning to us as well to be careful, to watch, to make sure that we haven't immersed ourselves in so much crud, culturally, that we're so used to it that we go, yeah, it's no big deal. Brothers and sisters, sin is a big deal to God. And if it's not a big deal to us, we ought to be alarmed. Sexual sin is even another degree. Now, all sin is damnable, right? And yet, sexual sin is something that is outside your body, it's even worse. And this is the sin that they were committing here in Sodom, Gomorrah, and the surrounding areas that was so common to them that they rejected the ability to have some virgin girls, these men. No, we don't want that. We want to experience our own perversion. was so common to them, they thought it was normal. Hold your place there and let's look at something here in Luke chapter 13 real quick. It's not directly related to this passage and yet I think you will understand why I'm reading it. Luke 13, verse 1. There were some present at that very time who told about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them. This is Jesus answering them. Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered in this way? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No. I tell you, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. It's easy for us to look at an account like this one in Genesis 19 and say, what awful people. And they were. They were people that did awful things. They were people that rejected the Lord completely. They had totally gone their own way. But before we pick up our judgment stones, I think it's important as a reminder to say this, unless we repent, we would all likewise perish. Now I'm not trying to scare you if you're already trusting Jesus Christ for your salvation. If you've truly repented and you believe and you're walking with Him, I'm not trying to scare you. But I do believe this serves as a warning to us to not play games with God. He knows. You may fool somebody next to you, but He knows. You may have your church on a membership role, but He knows. Unless you repent, you will likewise perish. Repentance is not a minor thing. It's a change of mind. It's a change of life. It's a change of heart. It's a change in way and belief. And God calls everybody from the smallest to the greatest in importance and in size to repent and believe in His Son, Jesus Christ. We looked at the scriptures last week or a couple weeks ago and looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 6 where it says, such were some of you. Such were some of you. Some of you were people that went sexually deviant. Some of you were liars. Some of you were involved in all kinds of things, but you've been washed if you trusted Jesus Christ. So when we look at this passage in Genesis 19, be careful. It's a warning. Be careful. Do not look at this and say, just horrible people. It is horrible. They acted horribly. They were wrong. And yet, God doesn't put this here so we can go, ha ha ha, death to all Sodomites. That's not the purpose of instruction like this. Let's look at what it is. Turn to the book of Jude. right before Revelation in the back of your Bible. That little book. So small it doesn't even have chapters. It has one chapter. Beginning in verse 5, now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left the proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness. until the judgment of the great day. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, here's the point, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. That's the purpose of this account. That's the purpose of the flood account. That's the purpose of all the counts of destruction of people, or at least part of the reason, is to serve as an example. When you read that, it should sober you. Oh my. It should sober you in your own faith, in your own walk, in your own life, and it should also serve as fuel for you to love your neighbor even more. I hope you don't want your neighbor destroyed. I sometimes have had that feeling pass over me, right? You're mad at somebody. You're angry at somebody. Okay, it's not my vengeance, it's going to be God's. And yet, that's not the heart God wants us to have. The heart God wants us to have is Lord have mercy on these people. Turn their heart toward you. Now it's too late for Sodom and Gomorrah and those that were there. It's too late. But it's not too late for those that you work with and those that you come across. If they would repent and believe, it's not too late. It's not. So you might be asking, why is this here? First of all, it's here as instruction to us. Second of all, it's here as a mercy. I know it doesn't seem that way. And certainly it wasn't for these individuals here. It didn't come across as mercy to them. But it should serve as mercy to everybody else. as a call of repentance, as a call to life. God desires people to be saved, not to be destroyed. These times of destruction are to serve as instruction and mercy. What did Jesus say in Luke chapter 17? Let's look at that. Luke 17 verse 20, it says, Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming in the ways that can be observed. Nor will they say, Look, here it is, There, for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. And he said to the disciples, the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, look there or look here. Do not go out and follow them, for as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the day of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So what will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed? Life goes on and it's normality and it's, you know, the work we have to do, the play we engage in, all the things that happen, all the things that everybody's involved in to some extent, day after day it becomes routine and you just live. And most people don't take notice of God. And this was the case here in Sodom, in Gomorrah. As the angels were pulling Lot away and getting him out of the city, everybody else was going on with their life. They absolutely weren't ready. They say, well, why didn't God send a sign to them? Why didn't that happen? The same thing could have been said in Noah's day. Why didn't they send a sign? The same thing in Jesus' day. God did send signs. He sent His prophets. In the day of Noah, Noah functioned as the prophet, heralding the Lord's coming. In this time, Abraham served that way. And throughout Old Testament history, God sent His prophets as a warning. Think about Nineveh. And Jonah was sent there. That's the greatest revival ever. This huge city. And Jonah says, repent! Now Jonah was actually hoping they wouldn't, which is sad. But they did. They believed God and they repented and God held back at that time and showed mercy. But don't be confused and don't stick your head in the sand. We don't know when Jesus is coming back. Jesus said, only the Father knows. So don't think you're smarter than Him. What does 1 Thessalonians 5 say? Let's look at that together. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, there is peace and security, then suddenly destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you are not in the darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light. Children of the day, we are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet the hope of salvation, for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another, and build one another up, just as you are doing." If you are in Christ, if you are walking with Him, if you believe You don't have to be afraid. You don't have to stick your head in the ground. You don't have to be unaware. But you should be ready. You should keep your account short. You should make sure that you're living a life of repentance and faith. Repentance isn't just something you do once. It's something you do anytime you sin. And so let me encourage you to be ready. And perhaps we've got this all wrong with our talk track that we use with other people. I don't know what you talk to other people about when you have tried to evangelize before, when you've tried to talk about the Lord. Maybe you've talked about the church, and come to the church, and there's nothing wrong with inviting people here. I hope that we are a friendly group, but we're a group that's going to tell the truth no matter who walks in the door. Some people are going to be turned off by that. In fact, if they're not in Christ, they probably will be. But have you ever tried to say to somebody, are you ready? Ready for what? Ready for Christmas? No, not Christmas. Well, what are you talking about? Taxes? Nobody's ready for taxes. Are you ready for the Lord's return? Huh? What do you mean? You know He's coming back. And do you know that all the things that happened in the Bible as far as the way he worked in destroying, in rescuing, those are pictures, those are examples, and I am a benefactor of that. He rescued me out of my sin. Unfortunately, those that haven't been rescued will be destroyed. Perhaps that's the discussion that we need to engage in with others. Romans 1 talks of people that are dedicated to lies, to dishonorable passions, to debased minds, engaging in the same sort of behavior homosex that they were engaging in here in Sodom and Gomorrah. And it says of them, their end is destruction. Their end is destruction. Now if that was a board game, it's really no big deal. You can be a good loser and lose in a game of chess or another type of game that you might engage in. But when it comes to life, life is really not a game. We don't want to take that chance. We don't want to end in destruction. We don't want the ones that we love to end in destruction. In fact, we don't even want our enemies to end in destruction. Nobody wishes that on somebody, the wrath of God being poured out on them. Listen here. Romans 1. I'm going to go to verse 16 and 17. This is how Paul starts that discussion. He says, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel. For it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith." That statement there is contrasted with verses 18 through the end of the chapter. It's the power of God and the believing in the power of God, the Gospel. The good news that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. That He took on the wrath of God on the cross. That He stood in my place. The Gospel. that is contrasted with this wrath of God being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Men and women who suppress the truth. At the end it says of them, though they know God's righteous decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them. That's called culture. Sinful culture. Not only the practicing of it, but the stamp of approval on it. And in our culture today, in our current state, things have flopped on its head, right? And the government who stands for, should stand for, God's law for right and wrong, they now call what is evil good and what is good evil. Quite often. Quite often. And if you call what is evil, evil, you're the problem. You're in trouble. You're hunted. We should not be surprised. We should not be surprised that sinners act like sinners. It's hard to take sometimes and sometimes people flip-flop on you like this and you don't expect it and yet you should not be surprised. Because sinners are going to act sinful. We shouldn't expect them to act any other way. So Going back here to Genesis chapter 19. God destroys, utterly destroys these cities. And Lot's wife looks back and she became a pillar of salt. Can I explain that to you? I've read commentaries that have scientific explanations for that, for the fire coming down and the Dead Sea splashing up and covering things and them being calcified. Can I explain this to you instantly? Nope. Maybe a better scientist than me can do that. But I'm going to tell you it's true because God said it. Abraham, who God loved, who God made a covenant with, comes out and he looks the next morning. It doesn't say this, but I can imagine Abraham was weeping. Weeping over all these folks that could have repented and believed. Verse 29, So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Once again, Lot is rescued. This is not the first time, is it? Lot is rescued before when he's taken captive. By the armies, right? A couple chapters before. And Abraham is sent in and Abraham goes and rescues him. But God gives him that victory. Chapter 14. And now Lot is once again rescued. Lot has to be a man that is just numb. Right? Going, I don't know what just happened here, but my wife just became salt. And his other daughters destroyed. He's got two daughters, the ones that were betrothed, left. And you would think, you would think if this was a fairy tale it would be, and they lived the rest of their days believing God, worshiping Him and trusting in His goodness and His mercy. No. That's not what happens. Let's look what happens. Verse 30, Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave. Caves are dark, dank places, aren't they? There are places that you don't tend to run to and live to, go to long term. I have never seen a Martha Stewart special saying this is how you decorate your cave. Can't put a window in a cave, at least not very easily. Right? God is the light. He's all about light, not all about darkness. This is a dark place. Understand that when it's painting this picture for us. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, hey, I got a great idea. Our father is old and there is not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father. So they made their father drink wine that night, and their firstborn went in and lay with her father." Now this is also unbelievable. He did not know when she lay down or when she arose. He didn't know. How drunk was he? Hey, here's another great idea. The next day the firstborn said to the younger, Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also, that you may go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father. So they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. Well, at least they had cousins to play with. Is that what this is about? No, this is incest. This is horrible. Just because it's in here doesn't mean it's good. This is trying to show us their level of wickedness. They had been in that Sodom and Gomorrah culture so long that they had no morals whatsoever. They were utterly destroyed. Utterly faithless. They had no belief in God. And just like Abraham and Sarah did, they took it upon themselves, hey, let's figure this out. Let's not trust Him. Let's not pray. Did you ever do that? Just try to figure it out. Let's not trust Him. Let's not pray. Don't do that. Not good. Maybe you didn't do this, but it's still not good. So this is the consequence then. What happens? Both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son called, his name, Ben-Ami. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day. Okay, so we've got the Moabites and we've got the Ammonites. We also have Ishmael. The one that Abraham and Sarah said, hey, yeah, that's fine, let's go do that. And they have this son called Ishmael. You know, between the three of those groups, the people who came after Ishmael, the Moabites and the Ammonites, those are all the people that caused Israel problems in the rest of the Old Testament. There are consequences to sin. There are consequences to sin. When you are godless and your offspring's godless, their culture becomes godless and their offspring becomes even more godless and it just spreads. There are consequences to sin. Like I said, this is one of the darkest places in all of Scripture. This is not somewhere we turn to. If I was a topical preacher, I would not be going here. Hey, let's talk about this. But brothers and sisters, take this for how it's intended. This is intended for our instruction. This is intended also for us to use to instruct others in mercy. We've got to be ready. And God always fulfills His promises. He's going to fulfill His great promises to us in salvation in Jesus Christ. He also fulfills the promises that He makes about destruction and the ungodly. We don't rejoice in that, but we do rejoice in Him. We trust Him. He is our King. He's our Savior. Let me leave us with this. Acts chapter 3. One of the commentaries I read really framed this very well. I'll just tell you briefly. When he was talking about Lot living in the cave with his daughters, he said that he didn't have the guts, this is a paraphrase, of the prodigal son. Prodigal son also lived a horribly sinful life for a long time. But instead of staying there, when he realized it, he came home. For Lot to run away, I mean, he lost everything. You understand that. He lost everything. Because everything was destroyed. He was a very wealthy man. He lost everything. To come home, he would have been back to Abraham, the father of the faith. And he would have said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, pray for me, that my faith would be like yours. But he didn't. He lived in the cave. And although he didn't know what happened to him with his daughters, He was every bit a party to it. He raised these girls to be the way they were. Acts chapter 3, verse 17, Know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer he thus fulfilled Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out. I that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. We'll just stop there. repent, turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come. Now, you may be tired. I understand that. I understand being tired. Your body may hurt. I even understand that. Maybe not to the extent that you do about your issues. you may be even sad over things that are happening in your life. And yet through tiredness and through pain and through sadness, you can still be refreshed spiritually. If you haven't been refreshed in a while, my guess is you haven't repented in a while. repent, the times of refreshing may come for you. God tells you this for your blessing, for your benefit. Believer, you will not experience what Sodom and Gomorrah experienced. Be encouraged in that, but also take heart that your unbelieving friends will So be ready for you first. It's like that, you know, being on an airplane where they say, put your oxygen mask on before you can help somebody else. You have to be ready first. Be ready for the Lord that you may help somebody else. And second, be ready with the message. Be ready that as God gives you the opportunity, you may help someone else. so they may see God's mercy, they may see His goodness, that they may experience repentance and refreshment. Amen? Heavenly Father, I ask, Lord, that You'd continue to work in us, that we would be a humble people of faith and refreshment of life and light, of love and truth in Christ and in Your Word. I ask, Lord, that you would add to your church, that you'd bring others, the most vile of others, to repentance and faith, that they would be a testimony to your goodness and your mercy. And, Lord, the most apathetic of those out there, Lord, turn their hearts towards you. They're the hardest to reach, those that don't care, that don't think they need this, that think it's for other people because they are quote unquote good people. Lord, have mercy on them as you have had on us. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.