Good morning. Point number one, the good book isn't totally good. Point number two, God is good. Point number three, God is good to bad people. Well, welcome to sermon number one in a series entitled, You Asked For It. You asked for it. a series of sermons based upon topics and texts that you have requested. You see, for 21 plus years, I have preached through books of the Bible, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, for the most part, with very few exceptions. And I intend to go back to that method because I believe that in the long haul, that is the best way to study the Bible and that is the best way to grow. However, from time to time, it doesn't hurt to break from the norm. Every once in a while, parents will say to their kids, what would you like to have tonight? Now, generally speaking, the parents will select the menu for the home, but every once in a while, it doesn't hurt to say, what would you like to have tonight? That being said, you asked for it. Let's define our terms. You. The you in you asked for it is a nebulous term because for the most part I don't know who you are because most of the requests that were made were made anonymously and that is good but it is quite possible that I could be preaching a sermon for you and you would not be here on the Sunday that I preach your sermon. So we don't know. It's not a collective you. It's like someone in the class is raising their hand and I'm calling on them, but I don't have time to call on everyone. So if your request does not get preached, it's nothing against you personally. It just means that I didn't want to preach that sermon at this time. The series is you asked for it, not you demanded it. Which brings me to the word it. The word it. Because these topics or texts are one and done, they cannot be comprehensive or exhaustive or thorough treatments of any text or topic. They will just hit the high points. And I will do my best to hit the high points and then to get to the bottom line. Thankfully, even if I intentionally or ignorantly leave out some of the high points or some of the peripheral points that you believe to be important even if I miss them if I get to the bottom line which is correct it will be a good sermon and I with confidence believe that in each sermon I am going to get to the correct bottom line because in every sermon the bottom line is Jesus Christ in all things he must have the preeminence search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but these are they which testify of me." It is all pointing to Christ. So I can tell you the bottom line of every sermon is going to be Jesus Christ. And so with those ground rules in play, for today, for this inaugural message and you asked for it, I have selected a very interesting request. Someone has asked me to deal with two stories which are very similar in the Bible. They both deal with hospitality. They both deal with homosexuality. And they both deal with the father's willingness to throw his young virgin daughters to a violent mob. These mirror stories come from Genesis chapter 19 and Judges chapter 19. So if you would please turn to Genesis chapter 19 and let me set up the context of our first story. God is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. He sends two angels who look like human beings to rescue Lot, that is the nephew of Abraham, and Lot's family from Sodom. With that brief context, listen to the first 11 verses of Genesis chapter 19. The angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, my lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise early and go on your way. And they said, no, we will spend the night in the town square. But he pressed them strongly so that they turned aside to him and entered his house and he made them a feast of baked unleavened bread and they ate. But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Lot went out to the men at the entrance and shut the door after him and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, here's the the passage in play. Behold, I have two virgin daughters, two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please. Only do not, do nothing to these men for they have come under my shelter, the shelter of my roof. But they said, stand back. And they said, this fellow came to sojourn and he became a judge, the judge of us. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. Then they pressed hard against the man lot and drew to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great. So they wore themselves out, groping for the door. There's a story that is almost identical to that, and that is in Judges chapter 19. And I would ask, please, that you would turn to that passage. And let me set up the context for you here. The story begins with a man from the hill country of Ephraim, that is in the north. And somehow he develops a relationship with a woman. Now whether he's actually married to her, we don't know. She is just described as his concubine. They run into some relational problems and she leaves him and she goes to her father's house in Bethlehem. And Bethlehem is in the south. So this man wants to woo his wife back and so he romances her and he goes to his father-in-law and he tries to get the woman back and the father-in-law thinks this is a wonderful thing. So the father-in-law extends hospitality to him and this man goes into the home of the father-in-law and he stays there for several days. He keeps trying to leave, but the father-in-law doesn't let him leave. He keeps having a meal and having something to drink, and don't leave now, and you can leave tomorrow, you can leave tomorrow. Finally, he says, I've got to go, and the father-in-law once again says, don't leave, the day is spent, leave tomorrow. And the guy said, no, I have to go. So he and his concubine leave, and they begin to head north. they pass what is now Jerusalem and they head up north and they get into the region of Benjamin to a place called Gibeah and when they go into the town square in Gibeah no one shows them any hospitality that is the man and his concubine and here's the story that we read about in Judges chapter 19 verses 16 and following And behold, an old man was coming from his work in the field at evening. The man was from the hill country of Ephraim. That's the same place that the traveler was from. And he was sojourning, just like Lot, in Gibeah. The men of the place were Benjamites, that is, from the tribe of Benjamin. And he lifted up his eyes and saw the traveler in the open square of the city. And the old man said, where are you going and where do you come from? And he, that is the traveler, said, we are passing from Bethlehem in Judah to the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim from which I come. I went to Bethlehem in Judea and now I'm Judah and now I'm going to the house of the Lord. But no one has taken me into his house. So he makes an offer to the man and he basically offers to feed himself and if he could just get some shelter. The old man offers him not only shelter but food and that's where we pick up the reading in verse 22. As they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, worthless fellows, surrounded the house, beating on the door. And they said to the old man, the master of the house, bring out the man who came into your house that we may know him. And the man, the master of the house, went out to them and said to them no my brothers do not act so wickedly since this man has come into my house do not do this vile thing now here's where the stories are very similar behold here are my virgin daughter and his concubine let me bring them out now violate them and do with them what seems good to you But against this man, do not do this outrageous thing. But the man would not listen to him. So the man seized his concubine and made her go out to them. And they knew her and abused her all night until morning. And as the dawn began to break, they let her go. As the morning appeared, the woman came and fell down at the door of the man's house where her master was until it was light. And her master rose up in the morning. And when he opened the doors of the house and went out to go on his way, behold, there was his concubine lying at the door of the house with her hands on the threshold. And he said to her, get up, let us be going. But there was no answer. Then he put her on the donkey. And the man rose up and went away to his home. That's into the hill country of Ephraim. And when he entered his house, he took a knife, and taking hold of the concubine, he divided her limb by limb into twelve pieces and sent her throughout all the territory of Israel. And all who saw it said, Such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it. Take counsel and speak. Consider it, take counsel, and speak. Father in heaven, as we look at these two mirror passages which are in your word, the Bible, we ask for grace from the Holy Spirit to help us to understand what these stories mean and why they are in your word. I would ask, Lord, that you would give me great grace this hour, Lord, to be able to speak clearly and to Speak, Lord, the gospel. I pray that Jesus Christ will be exalted from this message. Father, I pray for each person. I sincerely pray for each person that you have brought to this church this day. I want to acknowledge, Lord, that you have brought them here, that they are here by your will, and I would ask, please, dear Lord, that their hearts would be opened to see the glory of Christ in these passages. This we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. Point number one, the good book. The good book isn't totally good. Whoever named the Bible the good book obviously never read it. Because it's not totally good. Now it is totally good in the sense that it is totally true. It's totally accurate and factual. It's inerrant and infallible. It's totally good in the sense that it is the only book that tells us about eternal life and salvation. It's totally good in the sense that it is the very word of God. It is God speaking. But it is not totally good in the sense that all of its stories have a happy ending and that they are pleasant. In fact, Hollywood doesn't even attempt to accurately dramatize what really happened in the Bible. I have never seen a Hollywood drama on the two stories that we have here today, at least not one that's been accurate. Children's storybook Bibles and coloring books usually do not include these two stories. So get the picture. Someone says, I would like to be a Bible reader. So they pick up a Bible, they know that the Bible is the good book, they think that the Bible is going to give them some encouragement, some kind of guide to living, and where better to begin than at the beginning, and they begin to read in Genesis chapter 1. They read that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and they begin to read, and somehow they get to Genesis chapter 19 and all of a sudden this book which is supposed to be about love and mercy and a guide on how they can live a better life, they are reading about a man who is offering his virgin daughters to the crazed men of the city. What is that Bible reader supposed to do with that information? 30 years ago, I was sitting in Mel Hall, which was my wife's dormitory at the University of Georgia in the television lounge, and I was watching an Atlanta Braves game with some students there, and this boy that was sitting beside me, I made an attempt to share the gospel with him, and he said, you know, I started to read the Bible. And when I read that God had one of His people who was willing to throw His two virgin daughters to a perverted crowd, I vowed that I would never open the Bible again. What do you do with such a person? Well, I think we start in this way. We start by pointing out that people have a preconceived, sanitized, glamorized, idealized view of the Bible. The Bible that just doesn't exist. See, we are okay when we read the Bible when the little guy with the slingshot hits the big guy and he falls down. We're okay with that. When the bad guy loses, we're okay. We're okay with the preacher being swallowed by the big fish or by the whale and then being spit out. We're even okay with the Savior being swallowed up by the grave and then coming back three days later. He is risen. He is risen indeed. All's well that ends well. But what about gang rape? Where is the Hollywood hallmark moment there? You see, the Bible, this is very important, is not an exclusively happy book. And we do not live in an exclusively happy world. And if that's what you're looking for in the Bible and in the world, you're going to be confused and you're going to be disappointed. Several years ago at Thanksgiving we went to visit my mother in Pennsylvania and so one evening we said, well... Let's go out to a movie. We didn't really know much about the movies that we were going to see. We just picked one that looked good. So here's my mother and here's Madison and Madison's just a young girl and we all went into sort of different theaters. And Madison and my mother went in to see what they thought was going to be a happy ending movie. And as it turns out, they went to see the movie Marley and Me. I mean, after all, it's a story about a man and his dog. As we were standing there waiting for them to exit, everyone that was exiting the theater had bloodshot eyes. They were crying. It is not a happy story. The dog dies in the end. My mother said, Eddie, why did you ever send us into that movie? That was horrible. When reading the word of God, you are not going to be able to fully appreciate its value until the Bible bubble is burst. Do you see how deep the problem is? I want to tell you for starters this morning that the Bible offers absolutely no place for anyone to hide. It is a raw, real book. You know, we all have secrets, don't we? Family secrets, personal secrets, skeletons in the closet, things that we don't want anyone to discover. Crazy uncles who really are more than just crazy, they're really sick and wicked. And we do our best to rewrite family and personal history and to sweep these things under the rug, but the Bible does not do that. It tells us that good people really are not good. When you begin reading the Bible, you see that Noah had a drinking problem. And you see that Abraham twice tried to give away his wife, and Isaac, his son, did the same thing. Jacob and all of his sons were con artists. Moses killed a man. Aaron fashioned an idol while the law was being given on Mount Sinai. Samson was a womanizer. Samuel was a horrible father. David was an adulterer and a murderer. And without question, he was the worst father in all the Bible. Solomon imported idolatry and promoted idolatry in the kingdom of Israel. Peter denied Christ. And Paul was a mass murderer. And these are the good guys. The good book isn't totally good. But yet we look at this man Lot in Sodom, one that God came to rescue, the nephew of Abraham. And if we were to categorize him, and you only really have two categories, the saved, the righteous, the people of God, the unsaved, the ungodly, those that are not the people of God, he would fall in the category of the good guys. He would be one of the righteous ones. Listen to what it says about him in 2 Peter 2, verses 7 and 8. He's a righteous man. In fact, he is referred to as righteous Lot who was greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked. For that righteous man lived among them day after day. He didn't like what he saw. He was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and he heard. He didn't have a rainbow flag hanging off of his house or in his front yard. He didn't see two men walking down the street and say, well, that's just an alternative lifestyle and boys will be boys. No, he was grieved within his soul. He was swimming upstream. Genesis chapter 19 verse 9, he was not considered one of them. This fellow came here to sojourn. Who is this guy? He's not one of us. And he has become a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. He wasn't respected in the city at all. But this guy, comparatively speaking, is a good guy. You move to Judges chapter 19 and you see that the old man who came in from his day at work was a good guy. This man in Gibeah was compassionate, he was generous, he was hospitable. Comparatively speaking, he's a good guy. Yet both of these men made really bad offers. Not just unwise, not just wicked, but exceedingly wicked and sinful. Here are my virgin daughters. That is sick, beyond belief, that is wrong. The virtue of hospitality does not extend to the point where we offer our children to be abused. If you look at that and you say, well, that was then, this is now, nothing like that happens today. It does happen today. It happens right here in the good old USA. We live in a society where pornography is not only legal, but it's prevalent, it's everywhere. It's tolerated, it's indulged in, it's considered to be normal. Fathers of America have failed to protect the young women of America. We are Sodom, we are Gibeah, we are Lot. We see it with celebrities. Billy Ray Cyrus, he condones and he even defends and promotes what his daughter does, the way that she dresses and talks and acts. And he's just thrown her out there to the men of Sodom and Gibeah. Great, Billy, you get the best of both worlds. Fathers in our society. are setting no standards for modesty for their daughters. There's no rules, there's no accountability, there's no shelter, there's no guidelines, there's no morals, there's no gospel, there's no excuse. You can't defend Lot. What he did is indefensible. And you really can't defend who we have become as a nation either. Don't try to justify what they did. It was cowardly, it was sick, it was selfish, it was wicked. You say, well, what does this have to do with me? What has everything in the world to do with you? You see, what we like to do is we like to find somebody who's worse than we are. Because if we can find somebody who's worse than we are, we can say, well, I might be, but I would never. Same wicked heart that was in Lot is in you, is in me. There's none righteous, no not one. If you like the game of hide and seek, don't go to the Bible because it is not going to offer you any shelter whatsoever. It will expose you fully for who you are and it is no respecter of persons. See, one of the reasons I believe that the Bible is true is because it doesn't even make the slightest pretense of protecting the reputation of its heroes. If I were going to invent a religion, and I were going to call my religion Christianity, and I were going to invent a God, and I were going to put together some sort of a storyline of how we got to where we are and what you should do, I would not create heroes with such glaring weaknesses. And even if these people really did exist, I would try to build their credibility by hiding and glossing over their gross sins. Because that's what we as societies do. That's what we as people do with our families. That's what we do with ourselves. What you see is not what you get. Babe Ruth. No question. There is no argument. He's the greatest baseball player that ever played. Go to Barnes & Noble to the children's section. You will see a little book about Babe Ruth. You will open it and you will read, George Herman Ruth was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He was raised in an orphanage. He hit 714 home runs. He had a lifetime batting average of .342. As a pitcher, he had an ERA which was slightly over two. And one afternoon in Chicago, he pointed his bat to the center field stands and hit a home run in the 1932 World Series. And Babe Ruth had a venereal disease and he beat his wife. No, you're not going to read those things. We give you the good stuff, not the bad stuff. Martin Luther King Jr. Public speaker, probably among voices that have ever been recorded, he is the best public speaker that has ever lived. I have a dream. I have it on my iPod. I listen to it all the time. Nonviolent. What he did for the civil rights movement, unbelievable. What a great American hero. Go to Barnes and Noble, go to the children's section, look at the book on Martin Luther King, and nothing is going to be written about, how do I say this nicely, how morally challenged he was. Because we, as societies, as people, do not write history the way the Bible does. The Bible's not going to give you any place to hide. So I believe the Bible is true for many reasons, but one of the reasons is because there's nothing hidden. There's nothing glossed over. There's no varnish whatsoever. You have a lot of depressing stories about a lot of bad people. And it creates a lot of confusion in the minds of people who say, you know, I thought this was the good book. And it creates even more confusion about God himself. How in the world can an all-wise, omnipotent, sovereign deity create a universe that is so out of control and so twisted and sick and wicked? that he allows such anarchy and depravity and debauchery and tragedy to occur. And furthermore, here's the real kicker, how is it that it occurs oftentimes from the hands of those whom he calls his own, people like Lot. I mean, what kind of a Western has a cowboy with a white hat offering up his virgin daughter to the stagecoach robbers? It just doesn't happen. And so, some are perplexed that the players on God's team, that they don't really keep the rules. And there's a theological name for this dilemma, and it's called a theodicy. A theodicy. It was a phrase that was coined by a German philosopher named Gottfried Leibniz in the year 1710. And here's what a theodicy is. It's an attempt to resolve or to explain the problem of evil. In other words, how do we fit a just God into a world filled with suffering? I'm going to attempt to answer that question this morning. And here's where we start. We have to start with a clear black and white reality check and admit that the Bible does not even attempt to sugarcoat the harsh realities of life. But it spells them out in language that is unpleasant even to visualize. So I wanna tell you, and we do, we tell you to be Bible readers, but I'm gonna tell you that as you become a Bible reader, a student of the word, you are frequently going to be introduced to atrocities. That's point number one. Next, what you need to do is you need to ask yourself, is there a reason why these things took place? Is there an explanation? for why someone would be so base and so cruel as to offer his daughters to a crazed mob. And I believe that there are clear answers that will not only explain what is happening in the Bible, it will not only explain what is happening in the world, but more importantly, it will explain what is happening in your heart and in your family. And it makes perfect sense. You see, just as the Bible is not a storybook of happy endings, the Bible, contrary to popular belief, is not a flattering description of the potential of the human heart. The Bible is not a pep talk nor an affirmation or an encouragement to be all that you can be. The Bible is a reality mirror which reflects the fact that we are really bad. all of us, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and there is none righteous, no, not one. You remember back in the day when you used to have to go to the drugstore with your film from your camera and they would develop the pictures and you have to pay for those pictures not knowing what they looked like at all, bring them back to your house and go through them and when you saw a picture which was not flattering to you, you would throw that picture away or you would rip it up. Why? Because we cannot stand to look at reality. Now we just hit the delete button. We don't even pay for those to get developed. But the camera doesn't lie. Photos of me which look bad, and there are many, I delete them. I do not want to look at them. But it is even worse. I do not have the capacity to look long and hard at unsightly photos of my soul. We don't have the capacity to do that. And when you read the Bible, I'm not just talking about browsing over it, but if you really read the Bible, it will tell you that there is none righteous. It will tell you that God made man upright, but that man has sought out many schemes. It will tell you that when our first father ate the fruit, He sinned, and that sin nature was passed down to us. And when that sin nature was passed down to us, it made our hearts above all things desperately wicked, and it enslaved us to do evil, and it fills us with pride and selfishness and temper and vindictiveness and lust and unbelief and spiritual blindness. I can see, when I look at someone else, their problems. I really can, and so can you. But what the Bible says about you is that you do not have an ability to see those same things in yourself. Boy, when I look at someone else and I am discouraged about the way that they are living, whether it's someone that is in the church or someone that is out there in society, and I am grieved by that, There is a perplexity that comes to my soul when I see the wickedness in them and then I get a picture back at myself and I see that although we may have different tastes, we are all the same. We are all wicked. We are all wretches. That is the conclusion that Isaiah came to in chapter six when he says, woe is me for I am undone. I live amongst the people of unclean lips, but I myself am a man of unclean lips. Even among Christians, the good guys. Paul says, in you, in your flesh dwells no good thing. Here's a description of what you were before you were in Christ. Titus chapter three, verse three, for we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days with malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. So this book of bad stories about bad people tells us exactly why they are bad, why we are so rotten. Do the math and it all adds up, it all makes sense. You see, I think one of the reasons why people struggle with all of the evil in the world And all of the evil in the world is something which they don't have a category for because they don't know and they don't believe the Bible. They don't know what the Bible says about the human heart. If you knew and believed what the Bible said about the human heart, all of the evil that you see, even a man offering up his daughters would make perfect sense. And if you were given eyes to see, it would make sense as to why you are the way that you are. What the Bible says about our hearts is true. How people have misbehaved since the Garden of Eden up to the present day. It all makes sense. Judges 19 makes sense. Genesis 19 makes sense. Now, understanding it does not excuse it. Understanding it does not diminish the pain. Understanding it does not take away the shock. There was great shock when the people of Israel received a package in the mail and it was a foot or a hand or a head of this concubine attached with the note. Consider again how shocked they were. Judges 19.30, all who saw it said, such a thing has never happened or been seen from the day that the people of Israel came out of the land of Egypt until this day. Consider it, take counsel and speak. The shock is not removed, but we are not left scratching our heads and wondering how things happen. We are not left with any kind of a mystery when we hear of a seventeen-year-old girl giving birth to an eight and a half pound baby boy and then taking the dead body of that baby boy in a bag to go on a shoplifting spree at Victoria's Secret in Manhattan on Wednesday. It is sick beyond belief. It is shocking. It is not excusable, but it's not a mystery if you believe what the Bible says about people. But why does God allow this? We are never going to know the answer to that fully, but here's what we do know. God was dead serious. when he said to Adam, in the day that you eat of the fruit of the tree, you shall surely die. That death infected the soul of man to the point where carrying a baby around in a bag while you're on a shoplifting spree is the result of rebellion against God. That is what happens. And you say, I could never do that. You're right, you could never do that if the grace of God prevents you from doing that. But you are deceived beyond belief if you think that you are better than that girl. You are deceived beyond belief. If you think that you are better than a lot, you're not. There's none righteous, no not one. And if you can look at yourself and find some good, then you don't need a Savior. You don't need Christ. These stories are in this book to show us who we are and why we need Him so much. The fall has infected us. We are dead spiritually. These stories really happened? Yes, but they are there to show us our need for the Savior. This story in Judges. has this literary inclusio at the beginning and at the end which says, there was no king in Israel. And then the last one says, and everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Implied in that is, if we just get a king, these kinds of things aren't going to happen. So you read the book of 1 Samuel and what happens? They get a king. And after they get a king, things don't get better, things get worse. And then eventually the kings get worse. And eventually you have a guy coming along like Manasseh, who's worse than anything that is described in the book of Judges. The king in Israel is not the answer. They need the king of kings, Jesus Christ. That is the point of the story. The good book isn't totally good. Here's point number two. God is good. Now, this point probably isn't going to say what you think it's going to say. In this context, when I say that God is good, I mean that he, in and of himself, is, of his own nature, good. He is pure, he's holy, he's just, he's fair, he's right, he's righteous. And we see God's goodness in these stories in the form of judgment. Genesis chapter 19 verse 24, Sodom and Gomorrah. Then the Lord Jehovah rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from out of heaven. And as a result, the blind homosexuals who tried to force themselves on the angels were evaporated along with everyone else in the town. The justice of God in the story in the Judges is a little bit longer and a little bit more complicated and took a little bit longer, but basically here's what happened in Judges. After the body parts were mailed out to all of the tribes, all of Israel came together and they made war against their brother Benjamin, the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin put up a good fight, but in the end, It was the equivalent of ethnic cleansing. They reduced Benjamin down to 600 men and no women. And they said, we will not give our daughters to the tribe of Benjamin and may we be cursed. May someone be cursed if he gives his daughter to Benjamin. Judgment took place. Sodom and Gomorrah and Gibeah, both of them were burned to the ground and no one, nothing was spared. The homosexual men who desired to violate this traveler but instead abused and murdered his concubine, they were all killed. Why were they all killed? The reason, oh, you're not gonna understand the gospel unless you understand this. The reason they were all killed is because God is good. He is so good that He will not be mocked. A God that will be mocked is not a good God. He is so good that He will avenge the enemies of His people. He is so good that He will not blink at sin, nor will He allow it to pass without payment. He is a good God, and the wages of sin is death, eternal death. Sometimes He addresses Sin in this lifetime, sometimes He addresses it in the life to come, sometimes He addresses it both. But He is good, He is fair, He is righteous, He is holy and He will not be mocked. Listen to what it says in the New Testament, reflecting on the Old Testament, Jude 7. For just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example, it'll happen to them, it'll happen to you, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire, what happened to them is what's going to happen to those who are not born again, verse 13. for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever." God is good. He's going to punish sin. 2 Thessalonians 1, 8 and 9. God is good. He's going to punish sin. Inflaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might. God is good. He's going to punish sin. The holiness of God demands that He deal with sin. He cannot overlook it. Back to the Old Testament, Habakkuk 1.13. You are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at it. Exodus 34.7, God who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. God is good. He will not overlook sin. 1 Timothy 5.24, the sins of some people are conspicuous going before them to the judgment, but the sins of others appear later. But they are eventually going to appear, whether it's now or later. Why? Hebrews 4.13, For no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. He is good. He knows everything. There is not going to be anyone that gets away with anything because God is good. We're all like Sodom. We're all like Gomorrah. We're just simply not going to get away with it. So, follow the argument. We're just on the precipice of the final point here. The book is filled with bad stories about bad people. In every instance, God is good. He treats the people with justice. In other words, he punishes them. It's because he's good. That leaves me with a horrible dilemma. Here's my dilemma. I'm bad. I'm very bad. And I don't want to go toe-to-toe with this God. So I've got one more point this morning. Point number three, God is good to bad people. You see, if I'm God, and I'm not, but I'm just thinking, if I were the one acting here, I would not go in and rescue Lot. I don't think that the guy is worth saving. I mean, categorically, he is one of the good guys, but if you look at his life, there's a lot to be desired here. He isolates himself from Abraham. Proverbs 18.1, whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire and breaks out against all sound judgment. He makes his hometown in hell. He has no influence whatsoever on his son-in-laws. He has no influence whatsoever on his wife. His daughters, whom he was willing to expose, they end up sexually assaulting him. I am amazed that God sent two angels into that toilet to rescue him. Mercy there was great and grace was free. Judges chapter 21. As I told you, Benjamin is reduced now to 600 men. They're about to be taken off the map. Israel is about to become 11 tribes. And they have no potential for reproduction. Then, out of stinking nowhere, we read this verse, and I don't even know where it came from, this verse in Judges 21.6. It is the most unexpected verse in the entire story. And the people of Israel had compassion for Benjamin, their brother, and said, one tribe is cut off from Israel this day. All of a sudden, in the middle of the fight, they all of a sudden developed compassion. Mercy there was great and grace was free. They didn't deserve, Benjamin didn't deserve a heritage or a progeny or a legacy. They deserved obliteration. But Israel had mercy and they figured out a way through some technicalities to get some wives for these guys. They didn't give them wives, not technically. They allowed these guys to take some wives. It was very clever how they did it. But in any event, the tribe survived. Why did the tribe survive? Because God is good to bad people. And I want to tell you today in closing that the means by which God demonstrates his goodness to bad people is through the giving of his son, Jesus, for their sins. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, Romans 5, 8, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. while we were still isolating ourselves, while we were still offering up our daughters, while we were still getting drunk and committing vile sexual acts and cursing and lying and stealing and taking his name in vain. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The book of bad stories with the bad people need a really good Savior. Not only would I not send my angels to rescue Lot, I surely would not send my only begotten Son in place of someone who hated me. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Jesus traveled to a place far worse than Sodom or Gibeah of Benjamin. He traveled to Mount Calvary, where He took my sins and He took God's wrath and He died for me. And as unthinkable as it is that a man would offer his daughters for angels or for a traveler, it is even more mind-boggling that God the Creator, more scandalous that God the Creator would offer his precious spotless son for me. For me! And you don't know me. But I'm gonna tell you I'm bad. And I'm gonna tell you the truth in telling you that I'm bad. I'm bad. Are you kidding me? This is amazing grace. God is good to bad people. Christ died for our sins and was raised. The gospel is of first importance. All right, one final thought. I told you that I wouldn't have gone after a lot, but God did. Amazing. Lot eventually has a descendant by the name of Ruth. And Ruth eventually has a descendant by the name of Jesus. God is really good to bad people. Benjamin. Benjamin eventually survives. Benjamin produces a fellow by the name of Saul of Tarsus. who you know better as the Apostle Paul. God is really good to bad people. And this fella, this Benjamite Paul, he pulls out his quill one day and he's writing a book called the Book of Romans. And he quotes a verse from the Book of Isaiah in chapter 9, verse 29, and Paul writes this. Paul the Benjamite writes this. Paul whose ancestors are gang rapers. His forefathers. This is his heritage. Paul goes to Barnes and Noble and he pulls a book off the shelf. These are my ancestors. What does he write? Does he write about how great Benjamin was? No. He writes, if the Lord of Hosts had not left us an offspring, we would have been like Sodom and have become like Gomorrah. He's so good to bad people. In sovereign mercy, he chose not to treat everyone like Sodom and Gomorrah, but in sovereign mercy, for reasons only known to him, although we don't deserve it, God is good to bad people through Christ. And so I ask you today, do you know him? If you do, will you please abandon and repent vigorously, publicly, of any goodness that you have. Will you please repent of your goodness? It is such a pretense. It is such a facade. You have nothing. You are nothing. Please repent of your self-righteousness and give all glory to Christ. And if you don't know him today, just let me say it is better to be his friend than not to be his friend. And there is a way to become his friend, and that is to seek mercy in Christ. So run in desperation and in faith and call out to Jesus Christ to save you. Because all of the mercy that God has for bad people is extended in the person of Christ alone. May all glory be to Christ and may no glory be to us. Father in heaven, thank you that in this perplexing story we have been able to detect the riches of your mercy. Lord, may we have sensitive spirits where we continue to be disgusted and appalled. And Lord, may those who commit unrighteous acts, Lord, may they find justice from the law. And Lord, may they find mercy from you. But Lord, we who know you, we wish to bow before you and say all glory be to Christ. Thank you for rescuing us and saving us. And Lord, please rescue us from our self-righteousness. Father, if there's somebody here that's not saved today, Lord, you went into Sodom and you rescued Lot. You rescued the tribe of Benjamin. Would you be pleased to the praise of your glorious grace to rescue one among us today? In Christ's name we pray, amen.