Genesis chapter number 19 we're going to finish our series on carnal Christianity and really we've been looking at a lot for the past few weeks and I know the Christmas season is upon us and so Lord willing we will move that direction pretty quick but I want to finish this series really with just an overview We think concerning a story written in Genesis and the Lord Jesus refers to it, God refers to Sodom and Gomorrah almost 20 times in other passages of scripture. And so before we leave our study on Lot, I thought it was important for us to at least look at passages. Now our ushers have a handout for you. I don't normally prepare a handout unless I think it's going to benefit you. And as I was looking at this study, I thought we're going to go to five different passages of scripture. And in order to get through this in one sermon, we're going to have to move quickly. So I thought I'll just give you the outline right there. There are no fill in the blanks. Merry Christmas. Don't you like those outlines with no fill in the blanks? When I was in Bible college, we had a teacher that gave us all the notes. I mean, he gave us everything. And then he just kind of went over the notes and read through the notes. Now, I didn't particularly like that in college because it made the lectures really boring. And so some of my friends would try to get him to chase a rabbit. You know, you ask a question that's kind of not really related. How many of you had a teacher in college like that? You come in and you just think, let's go ahead and ask some questions and try to derail the teacher. But we had all the notes, and so you're getting all the notes here. Well, you're not getting all of them, but you're just getting the overview so we know where we're going here. And so I just want to look at five of the number of times that Sodom and Gomorrah is mentioned in the Word of God and get some application for us. I do recognize that in many of these instances it's not a direct command or instruction to the church. I do recognize that. But we can learn as we see what's important to God as God interacts with people groups, as God communicates in His word concerning people groups, we can learn concerning God and God's heart. And so my attempt will be to try to make some application as we go through these warnings concerning Sodom and Gomorrah. Now we're in Genesis chapter 19. Follow along as I read three verses, Genesis 19, 27 to 29. And then I'm going to read a verse from 2 Peter 2 and verse number 6. If you want that, 2 Peter 2 and verse 6. Genesis 19, beginning in verse number 27, the Bible says this, And Abraham got up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord. And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the plain. and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace. And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt." And we'll look at that verse, Lord willing, at the end. 2 Peter 2 and verse number 6 The Bible says this, "...and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow," now here's the phrase I want us to see here, "...making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly." Making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly. We have good examples in the word of God and we have bad examples. Don't dismiss the bad examples. Use the bad examples to help you to know what not to do, all right? Use the good examples to help you to know what to do. And as we look at these passages of scripture, we're gonna see some warnings. Let's have a word of prayer and let's ask the Lord to meet with us. Lord, we recognize here this morning that without you we're nothing. And Lord, I yield myself to you. And Lord, I pray that you would use me as your servant here to communicate truth to your people. And Lord, I ask that you would be glorified in everything that's said and done. Lord, we need you, and we love you. Thank you for the great singing and interaction with your people. Now do what only you can do. Help us, Lord, from your word. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to take you to the first passage of scripture found in Deuteronomy chapter number 29. Deuteronomy chapter number 29 and again we're looking at references made to the example of Sodom and Gomorrah. This one here is a reference for alliteration purposes about a response to mandates or commands that we find in the Word of God. This one is specifically referencing God's people. God has promised His people, as we look at Israel, if they would obey, He would bless them. If they wouldn't, He wouldn't. He'd remove His hand of blessing. Chapter 29, In verse number 29, the Bible says this, and the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you and the stranger that shall come from a far land shall say when they see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it and the whole land, here's our reference now, thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admon and Zeobam, which the Lord overthrew in his anger and in his wrath, By the way, sometimes we forget that sin brings consequences, and sometimes we blame God for the consequences of our disobedience. And God says, if you obey, I'm going to bless. If you disobey, in this particular passage, I'm not going to bless. And so we have a tendency sometimes to look at this and think, well, it's God's fault. No, it's the consequences of their disobedience. Verse 25, when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt. For they went and served other gods and worshipped them gods whom they knew not and whom he had not given unto them. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book. And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger and in wrath and great indignation and cast them into another land as it is this day. The secret things belong to the Lord, those that are revealed belong to us and our children. In any event, what are we seeing here? We are seeing a warning concerning the commands that God gives. This one again is directly targeting Israel, God's chosen people, and God said to them, if you bless, I'm going to, I mean, if you obey, I'm gonna bless. If you disobey, I'm not. And remember Sodom and Gomorrah and what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. There were times in the history of Israel where their land was like a desert. There were times when the whole land became like brimstone and salt. And we think concerning God's blessing What do we learn? What can we learn from the admonition in this? We need to recognize that obedience is important to God. We see that theme throughout the whole of scripture. Remember when King Saul, God told him to destroy the Amalekites, and he was to destroy all of them, and he spared some of them. He spared some of the oxen and some of the leaders there, and he said, Lord, well, look, we only spared the good ones, and we're gonna offer them to you. And God says, behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, right, and to hearken than the fat of rams. And then you look at the next verse, stubbornness. It says, iniquity and idolatry. You think concerning worshiping idols and God equates that as an aspect of something that ought to get our attention when it comes to rebellion, when it comes to disobedience. You wouldn't let somebody, a witch come into your house and sit down and and give instructions to your family. You would say to that witch, you got to go, so long, see you later, you're not invited in. And yet sometimes we're looking at rebellion and iniquity and idolatry and we're looking at what God says to Samuel there. We need to recognize, first of all, as parents, we cannot allow disobedience in our homes, right? We're to train up a child in the way they should go. And we have been given children that God says, hey, I want you to raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We need to also recognize that when we disobey, consequences come for our disobedience. And I've talked to people, and they say, well, I don't know why God's doing this, and I don't know why God's doing this, and I don't know why God's doing that. And if I can say to them in a nice way, I'll say it. If I can't, sometimes you can't. Well, somebody should take a step back and say, you know, you made some bad decisions. You chose to marry this individual that's not saved and you are saved and you need to take responsibility for the decisions that you make. You see, obedience is a big deal. How do we know that in the New Testament? What did Jesus say? Jesus said this, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. Oh, we can come into church and we can sing, my Jesus, I love thee. We can sing about loving the Lord Jesus. And we go out and we disobey. We don't keep his commandments. We're hypocrites. Easy to give lip service. And yet this matter of obedience is important to God. The other thing that puzzles me sometimes is that sometimes as God's people, we can live a dual life. We can live, come to church and people come to church and listen to preaching and they're living in sin. Week after week and month after month and finally when they get right, they come in and say, hey, I've been living in this sin for six months. We can get accustomed to disobedience in our own lives. Why? Because sometimes when we disobey, the lightning bolt doesn't come. Anytime I read Acts chapter number five, we were there this morning in the Sunday school hour, think about this, Brother Shaw, if that happened in 2024, we'd have the fear of God, right? Ananias and Sapphira come in and say, hey, we sold this, and boom, Ananias is dead, or I probably would have been carried out a long time ago myself. The reality is, Great fear came because, boom, judgment came. You see, sometimes we make decisions. Somebody say, I want to look at the wrong thing on the internet and look at the wrong thing and look at the wrong thing. We look at the wrong thing. If lightning came right away and we were, you know, if our computer blew up, we go, oh, whoa, you know. But sometimes the consequences of our disobedience aren't felt right away. Be not deceived. God's not mocked. What a man soweth, he'll reap. our sin will find us out. So we see a reference here in Deuteronomy. Now go all the way to the other side of the Bible here, and we're going to the book of Jude. We're going to the book of Jude, and there's only one chapter. So you're in the book of Jude, and you don't have to go to chapter 2 or 3 or 4. There's only one chapter. And I want you to look at verse number seven. We see a second reference, and this is with regards to morality. Jude one, verse seven. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Now Jude is challenging, the challenge here is to earnestly contend for the faith. The reference here is to false teachers and bad morals, specifically homosexuality, but also with fornication or immorality with the opposite sex. We see people that have given themselves over to this kind of lifestyle. By the way, there are people in 2024 in the United States of America that have given themselves over to this kind of a lifestyle, and they would be good to look at this verse and to recognize that what God says about Sodom and Gomorrah, He's using this as a reference to judgment specifically upon false teachers, but He's referencing what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah. You see, sin, sometimes people think that they're going to get away with sin. Sometimes as a Christian, we can sit back and see what's going on in our society and see how people are treated and watch the news and whatever, and we can make some conclusions that it looks like the good guys are winning, the bad guys are winning. You ever felt that way? You think, man, they're allowed to play by a different set of rules. They're allowed to do this. They're allowed to cheat. Hey, God is in control. And even though it may appear that the bad guys are winning, we know the end of the story. God will deal with sin. As I thought about this verse, I thought, I asked myself this question, what can we learn about God and the character of God from this? There's a number of things we could learn, but the thing that I thought of is that God wants us to be pure. Purity is important to God. You know, there's a lot of emphasis on love in our society, and I think God is love, and I'm thankful that God is love. God is loving, His love is unconditional, and there's a lot of emphasis in Christianity in our world about the love of God, and I'm thankful for God's love. But when you read Isaiah 6, and Isaiah says, here I was, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. The phrase is not love, love, love. It's holy, holy, holy. God's foremost attribute is His holiness. Here's a verse for you. You need to figure out what this means. Verse Peter 1 and verse 16. Be ye holy as I am holy. Pretty high call. By the way, the way we're able to be holy is he is holy, and it's because of the Holy Spirit moved in when you got saved. And he rolls up his sleeves and says, hey, I'm going to conform this individual to my image. I'm thankful for the Holy Spirit of God. 1 Peter 2.11, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against your soul. What did Paul tell Timothy as a young man, a young preacher boy? He said, be thou an example of the believer. And the last thing he references is 1 Timothy 4 and verse 12 is purity. Do you know what we need on our lives? We need the power of God. As we interact with other people, as we seek to help people to see their need for Jesus, we need God's power on our lives. We really need individuals not to see us, but we need them to see Jesus in us, because the Jesus that lives in us is the only one that's gonna make a difference in the lives of other people. But if we're gonna have the power of God on our life, we're gonna have to live pure lives. Purity precedes power. And we are inundated in our society with impurity, whether it be billboards, commercials, advertisements, music, whatever, it abounds. And the further the United States of America gets away from the Lord, it seems to me, I mean, yeah, the further we get away from the Lord, it seems like the worse things get. I am told, I've only been to a few countries overseas, but I'm told in some countries you can go into the gift shop, you know, you go to Gettysburg here and you can buy them little cannons and little Gettysburg stuff. We used to do this as a kid, you know, and get the little hat and think, man, this is cool stuff, you know. But I'm told in other countries you can go into a souvenir shop and buy pornography on key chains. It's just rampant. You can be driving your car and the billboard isn't the guy on the camel with the cigarettes, it's somebody that's naked. This world in which we live in is bad. But God tells us, God's not surprised by the way, and He still gave us the command to be holy as I am holy. And as we look at the reference in Jude, we see it as connected to morality and God's heart for purity. Go to Matthew chapter number 10. In Matthew chapter number 10, we're going to give you a third warning. This is about a response to messengers. There are two passages here. We'll probably just look at the first one, Matthew chapter number 10. The other one is a reference. Do they give you both? Yes. Okay, so in Luke 10 in Matthew 10 Jesus sends out the 12 in Luke 10 this is a reference to sending out the 70 that went out and the admonition or the example there of Sodom and Gomorrah is used in both passages Matthew 10 And verse number 14, and whosoever shall not receive you, again, sending out the 12, and he's saying, go out and preach, verse 7, as you go, preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand, heal the sick, verse 8, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out freely, receive freely, give. Verse 14, and whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city." We see the same thing in Luke 10 verse 12, I say it should be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city. In Luke chapter number 10 verse 16, Jesus said, He that heareth you, heareth me. He that despiseth you despises me, and he that despises me despises him that sent me. The idea here was if you reject God's minister, the agent that God sent in this passage, what he's saying is you go out and you preach, and if you're rejected for those individuals, it would have been better, more tolerable in Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for them when they face the judgment of God. We ask ourselves this question, what can we learn from this? We can learn, obviously, God uses man to preach his message to others. We think about that, all of us are called to be a witness. All of us, by the way, one of the most challenging things sometimes in Christians is to get Christians to be a witness, to carry gospel tracts, to talk about Jesus. By the way, Jesus said this in John 15, if the world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own, but because you're not of the world, I've chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Jesus didn't say to the 12 when he sent them out here in Matthew 10, listen, if people don't want to listen, then you can quit. If people give you a hard time, don't worry about it, go home, you're done for the day. If people persecute you, Jesus didn't say any of that. He said the issue is if they don't listen, they're going to face the judgment of God and the idea is what? Keep on giving, keep on preaching. We think about concerning what we see throughout the New Testament when it comes to being a witness. All of us have a responsibility. Paul said it this way, I am a debtor in Romans chapter number one. All of us have a responsibility to preach Jesus. There are individuals in the sphere of our influence that are gonna spend eternity in hell if we don't witness to them, if we don't take responsibility and say, hey, I have to get the word to them. And we think about that. Sometimes we don't live in light of the reality of a real place that burns right here and now while we sit in our auditorium where people are for all eternity. Jesus uses Sodom and Gomorrah to say, hey, it's going to be like that for them if they reject your message. And by the way, people will reject our message. I think the apostles had the right attitude when they said they came back and they said, hey, we were counted worthy to suffer for his name. Do we ever think that way? I would sound kind of worthy to suffer for his name. By the way, I don't think we know suffering here in America when it comes to person, you know. Okay, someone might slam the door in your face. He said, what's the worst thing that ever happened to you? Well, maybe when I was a kid, some neighborhood kids chased us. Chases with a hammer, we ran away. And we didn't die. I'm still here. We made it. God got us through it. I had somebody once tell me in an apartment complex when we were finished, you're going to come here and you're going to go take all those brochures off of East Door. That's what you're going to do. And I wanted to say stuff, but I didn't say it. I said this. I said, we're happy to leave, but we're not going to remove all that stuff because we're not doing anything wrong. I pulled out the legal definition of solicitation, which we weren't doing, and so I'm trying to think. I had a guy come to the door with a gun before, you know. I didn't see the gun. The partner with me, he was a teenager, he was scared out of his brains, and I'm like telling the guy, you don't get saved, you're gonna go to hell, you know, this and that, and we walked away, and this guy goes, hey, did you see that gun? I said, no, what gun? He said, that guy was holding a shotgun behind the door. I said, oh, I didn't see it. I'm glad I didn't see it. I was, you know, I'm trying to think. Any of you been beaten up for giving the gospel? You know, we don't really have much to worry about. These guys in the New Testament, they preach the gospel, and Paul was left for dead. And he got up and just went and did it again. That's some serious commitment to the Lord. Letter D, go to Matthew 11. How about a warning about response to miracles, Matthew 11 and verse 23. Jesus is upbraiding the cities where mighty works were done, verse 20. He went in and He would do miraculous, He would show them that He is God. And He says in verse 23, And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which had been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. You have to ask ourselves this question, and we don't have a lot of time to go here. I can give you the references. Actually, we can go to one because it's all in the same. Go back to Matthew 8. We have to ask ourselves the question, what was done in Capernaum? Because what Jesus is saying is if what miracles that he did in Capernaum, if those were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, Sodom and Gomorrah would have repented. It would have made a difference. In Capernaum, you saw the hand of God and you saw the power of God, but you didn't repent. And that's the aspect of what he's saying. You've seen God do a work. In Matthew 8 and verse number 5, and when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion beseeching him. And we read the story of Jesus healing the centurion. He said, I'll come and heal him, verse 7. And long story short, verse 10, he marveled. He said, I've not found so great faith not in Israel. And he heals him. We go to the next story, verse 14, and we see here Peter's mother-in-law. When Jesus was come to Peter's house, he saw his wife's mother late and sick of a fever. He touched her hand, the fever left. And what do we see here? We see him doing a work there. Matthew 8 and verse 16. Look at verse 16. When the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick. in Mark chapter 2. Remember the story where they brought the guy down through the roof? That was in Capernaum as well. But when you look at verse number 16, we see Jesus. It isn't just selective. We see His miraculous power at work in many individuals' lives. And Jesus said, if they had seen my power, Sodom, it would have been different. What can we learn from this? Beware of treating lightly the works of God to bring you to Himself." Beware of treating lightly the works of God to bring you to Himself. God shows Himself strong. We know that the Lord daily loatheth us with benefits. In Psalm 107, verse 8, 15, 21, and 31, you read the same verse four times, O that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. God will show Himself strong in order to help people to see His power and come to Jesus Christ. For the most of us, we've trusted Christ already as Savior. And God will show Himself strong on our behalf to increase our faith to draw us closer in our relationship to Him, to cause us to be more dependent upon Him. Do you know where I think we fail the most in this area when it comes to the works of God to bring Him to Himself? We complain. Do all things without murmurings and disputings. The power of God yesterday should help me trust the promises of God today. We looked at that a few weeks ago. But isn't it funny how sometimes we go up and down, up and down. We see God do something great. We say, Lord, this was a miracle. I can't believe you did this in my life. Thank you so much. This is wonderful. And we get up the next day and we got a new trial and we're like, I can't believe I'm facing this. What's God doing? We start complaining. I can't believe, you know. I think it grieves God. I think sometimes we do have a tendency to treat lightly the works of God in order to bring us closer to Himself. Let me give you a fifth warning as we look at Sodom and Gomorrah, Luke 17. Luke 17 and number five, you see it on your handout there, hopefully you got one, warning about a material mindset or a materialistic mindset. Luke 17, verse 28, 29, and I recognize that we're looking at the future when it comes to this, references to end time judgment, the warning to those who are living earthly minded. And verse 28, the Bible says, likewise also as it was in the days of Lot, They did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built it. And again, we're talking about reference to end time here, but we're using an example. In Lot's day, they were just living for the here and now. Very materialistic, just what's here and now mindset. Verse 29, but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all, even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed." What do we see here? A description of the character of the people of Sodom and their temporal mindset. And boy, it's easy to live in a world that is materialistic. and Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You know what's funny about these sales? I don't know if you've noticed this. Black Friday sale, this is the greatest sale ever. Black Friday's ended and it says, continuing the Black Friday sale, this is the greatest ever. You know what I mean? Then they change, the prices are still the same. Christmas Eve sale or whatever, Cyber Monday sale. By the way, sometimes they're all the same. But sometimes they're a little different. So I bought some stuff on Black Friday, and I happened to be on the computer on Cyber Monday or whatever it was, and I found the same things cheaper. You know what I did? That's right, I did. Uh-huh. All the ladies would be proud of me. Uh-huh. I bought them right there on the line, right there online, and I took the other ones back. I saved some money. And then they asked me, tell us about your purchase. And you know what I told them? It would be more convenient if your prices would be the same on Brack Friday and Cyber Monday because I returned them all. So maybe someone in the upper echelons will get that. Where am I going with this? I'm kind of, oh, oh, oh. We need to live in light of eternity. We need to live in light of what really, really matters. Set our affection on things above. Stephen talked about on Sunday night, lay up treasures in heaven where moth and rust don't corrupt, thieves don't break through and steal. I want you to go back to Genesis 19 before we close. And I'm not gonna say too much more about a materialistic mindset. I wanna just show you one other thing that I find interesting before we close this series. And I mentioned it when we read the scripture. We've got here the admonition and I want you to see something that God highlights here, the agent in Lot's life. Genesis 19 and verse number 29, and it came to pass when God destroyed the cities of the plain that God remembered Abraham. and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot dwelt. God delivered Lot because God is merciful. But interesting, God connected the deliverance of Lot to the faithfulness of Abraham. Abraham was the human agent. One commentator said this, this is the second time Abraham was rescued by Lot, one by the sword and the other by supplication. Abraham was a man that walked with God. The scripture calls Abraham a friend of God. And I thought about this as we, again this is just a little side note before we end, I thought about this aspect of Abraham's continuing to care and I think intercede for Lot. He didn't give up on Lot. You want to go there? Go ahead, go there. I'm done with you. I'm done. I'm done. I'm done with them. They're cut out of my life. You know, they died. You know, we say that sometimes when we react. I'm glad God's never done with us, aren't you? And it's interesting that God connects that to Abraham. And I thought how important it is for us to let God use us to intercede for other people. Carnality is a big problem. We find it in 1 Corinthians 3, the church there at Corinth. We see here a man named Lot that the scripture says was righteous, and yet he made choices that were bad. They affected himself, they affected his wife, they affected his children. Yes, he was righteous. But in my estimation, he was carnal. May God help us to walk with him. Say, Lord, I want to be spiritually minded. I don't want to be carnal. May God help us to recognize the responsibility that we have to impact other people with the good news of Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we love you today. Lord, I recognize we covered a lot of material here. He's trying to highlight stuff. And Lord, I ask though that you would take truth by the power of your spirit and would you speak to our hearts.