The sermon text for this morning is Genesis chapter 19. And I believe I need to correct what's in the bulletin. It's chapter 19 verses 30 through 38. Chapter 19 verses 30 through 38. As we continue our series, preaching through the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, on page number 14 of your Pew Bibles, I invite you to stand out of respect for the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. Now Lot went up out of Zor and lived in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to live in Zor. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger, our father is old. There's 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 the firstborn went in and lay with her father. He did not know when she laid down or when she arose. The next day the firstborn said to the younger, Behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us go make him drink wine tonight also. Then you 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 the 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 and called his name Ben Amin. He is the father of the Ammonites to this day. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God abides forever. Amen. You may be seated. How do you preach a passage like Genesis chapter 19 verses 30 through 38? I wrestled over this text this week a lot. There are some scholars that I opened and saw what their books, saw what they had to say about this text. And one of them, the first thing they said is this is not a passage that I advise you to preach at all. Wow. Well, if that's true, I put myself in a bad situation. So here it is, right next. And I think you know why he would suggest that. This is a dark text. There are dark things which are difficult to speak about here. There are shameful acts that take place here, that take place in a cave at night. But scripture doesn't shy away from these sensitive matters. Scripture takes us to the dark cave. Scripture shows it to us. Scripture speaks about sensitive issues and exposes compromise. Second Timothy 316, what did we hear read this morning in the first reading from God's word? It says all scripture is breathed out by God in profitable for training and righteousness. All scripture, and that includes the dark cave of Genesis chapter 19. We must preach this text. We cannot skip it. We cannot go around it just because it's difficult to talk about. And yes, it is difficult to talk about. I know a church, I was there, this passage was being preached, and several people walked out and never came back to church because they were worried about what their kids were going to hear. And I want to assure you this morning that I will be delicate, I will be careful as a preacher of God's word, but we must talk about these things. We must preach God's word to God's people. The cave is here in Genesis chapter 19 for us all to learn from. God included this in his inspire word because it really happened and because there's a lesson for you here, several lessons for you here. And the main idea that stands out in this passage, as I wrestled over it this week, there are lots of different ideas, but the central message which I want to impress upon your hearts this morning is this. You can take God's people out of Sodom, but there still may be the spirit of Sodom in God's people. You can take God's people out of Sodom. You can pull them out of Gomorrah. the spirit of those cities, the spirit of the wickedness of this world may be present among God's people and it must be dealt with. And we're going to go into the darkness of the cave and see what's there, but I want to assure you, because we're going to spend some considerable time there, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We will walk out of the cave and see the light of redemption, and we will see the promise of the gospel. For God's word includes this as well. I want you to notice, first of all, what's going on here in the dark cave. Lot and his family fled Sodom and Gomorrah at the last second. Do you remember that earlier in the chapter, how God sent two angels to seek out Lot and to warn him and really to inspect the city and see if what was said about it was true? Well, it was true. And it was full of rampant wickedness. Yes, in hospitality, but also homosexuality of a violent nature. And there were men who surrounded Lot's house and said, send out those angels that we may know them. Of course, they said, send out the men because these angels were disguised as sojourners, as ordinary men, and they wanted to take advantage of them in this perverse manner. Well, because of this, God's judgment comes with fierce and rapid succession upon the city. But first, he pulls Lot and his family out. And as they're heading towards salvation, towards survival, Lot's wife lingers and she looks back and she is caught up in the judgment on the plane and she is taken and becomes a pillar of salt. But Lot and his two daughters then become the only survivors. That's it. You say, who was saved from Sodom? Just Lot, just his two daughters. and they escape and they go to the city called Zor, which was like a little Sodom. But apparently after a while, they became uncomfortable with living there. It says that fear dominated Lot's mind. Perhaps he was always afraid that God's judgment would come upon that city. And he pulls his family, and where do they go? They go into the hills, and they live in a cave. And that's where we find ourselves in this dark cave. Now after a time, Lot's daughter started to wonder ordinary questions. How will we find husbands if we're all alone out here? How will we have children and raise them? How will we carry on the family legacy? How will we perpetuate our father's name? These are good desires. These are natural desires. But you wonder, did they think that maybe no one on earth is living anymore? I mean, they had just seen God's fire rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Maybe they thought we're the only ones, we're the last ones on earth. And so they hatch a plan and it is a shameful plan. This is about as much as I'm going to say about the plan. They got their father drunk and they bore children through incest. Here's the disturbing irony. Lot's daughters survived Sodom only to bring Sodom back to life, far from the city, in the cave. It's like, to use another metaphor that's used in scripture, it's like they ran away from a lion just to run straight into a bear. to try to flee from one form of wickedness just to run straight into the jaws of another. These were survivors of Sodom and Gomorrah. You think, wow, they figured it out. They understand. Well, they don't. You can take God's people out of Sodom, but there still may be the spirit of Sodom in God's people. And this should hardly surprise us if we're really reading our Bibles, because this happens in the New Testament as well. Did you know that? 1 Corinthians 5.1. In fact, I'm gonna turn there. 1 Corinthians 5.1 says this. To God's people, to the church, Paul is writing, he says, it is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant. You see, you understand that God's people can flee from one form of worldly wickedness and say, we're out, we're safe, we got away from it, look at us, we're pure. And then run straight into another. And they can be so blinded by it that they can brag and think it's fine. They can think they're doing something good even. And then along comes God's prophet, along comes his ambassador and says, no, this is shameful wickedness, do not do this. flee from sexual immorality. And there is a lesson for us here. We fool ourselves if we think we're safe from perversity just because we don't hang pride flags in our windows. Just because we don't go to nightclubs and participate in debauchery on weekend nights. Sexual scandal can and does happen in both cities and in caves, in nightclubs and in churches. We need to be sober-minded and aware of this. Because if we think, if all we ever think is, oh yeah, the perversity, oh, it's over there. Yeah, I know where you can find that. I'll give you an address. And if we don't understand that it can find its way into our own homes, into our own churches, then we fool ourselves because it happened in the New Testament. And God warns us that this can happen to God's people. He warns us. We have to be alert and aware. I have seen churches, reformed Presbyterian churches, broken down by scandal. And do you know why they were broken down? Not because of what happened, but because they tried to hide it. Because they buried it in a cave. And they left it there in the dark cave. They thought no one would ever find out about it. Let's leave it there, this will affect us, this will break us apart if people, if the public finds out. And guess what? It always finds its way out of the cave. This is one of those sermons where I'm pleading with God's people to be sober minded and aware. To know that we cannot afford to keep sin hidden away in the dark. We cannot afford to live in a cave. We must speak up and bring sin to the attention of proper authorities. Or else we smear the witness of Christ Church. And so that's the first lesson here, is to look at what happens in this dark cave and say, you know, this is uncomfortable, but it's true, that this stuff just doesn't happen out there. Things like this happen way closer than we are willing to admit. Some of you may even have stories, some that are personal and hurtful of how this got close to you. I want you to hear that God sees that, God knows, and he doesn't leave you with that. There's another lesson to be learned here, especially for parents. We must guard our children from Sodom's perverse influence. That's really important. You know, where on earth did Lot's daughters come up with this scandalous idea? Where did they hatch this plan? They learned it from Sodom. They learned it in Sodom where they grew up. Homosexuality was certainly one form of unnatural desire that festered in Sodom. But it wasn't the only unnatural desire at work in Sin City. And we know this because if you were to turn to Leviticus chapter 18, we didn't read this as our first scripture reading, but I leave it to you to read this later. And what you'll notice is that there are different forms of unnatural desires that God says are going to find their way in sexual immorality amongst the pagan people whom Israel is a neighbor. And this, Yes, Leviticus 18 mentions homosexuality. Guess what it also mentions? Incest. Improper relations with one's relatives and relations outside of marriage. God-defined marriage. And it mentions these side by side. Why? Because these were the kind of perverse things that you would see amongst cities like Sodom. Where did Lot's daughters learn to do this? Why was this the tool that they turned to to deal with a frustration, an obstacle in their way? Well, because they saw this kind of thing in Sodom. They learned this kind of mentality in Sodom. Lot's daughters did in the cave what they first learned in the city. You see, Lot put his children in an atmosphere where they were absolutely inundated, just barraged by the worst of this world. He didn't protect his daughters. He threw them at the world. And we see this earlier on in chapter 19. He literally did this. Look at chapter 19. He says, He says, I have two daughters who have never known any man. Take them and do with them what you want. See, this was Lot's fear-focused response when Ben come knocking at his door. He says, take them. Don't bother me. Don't bother these men who have come into my home. Take my daughters. And if this was his response in a moment of serious fear, we know that Lot's attitude. Think about who he gave his daughters to be married unto. They were betrothed to two men who never made it out of Sodom because they weren't righteous. He gave his daughters to be betrothed to two men who were so corrupt that they never made it out. What about your own children? Are you raising them in an environment that teaches them about the perversions that are out there but carefully? Are you teaching them that God's design is truly better than what the world would offer up and the shortcuts that the world would give? Are you protecting your children from the sexually charged media or are you plugging them into its powerful influence? Are you aware of what they're watching on YouTube, on television? It's amazing what our world will have. Two made up creatures saying to one another on a cartoon screen. I've seen it. I've watched this. Frasier Lewis will watch something. I said, oh my, they cannot watch this anymore. I need to look into this more carefully. And that's on me. The warning here, this is the warning I'm giving you from this text. Don't raise your daughters in Sodom. Don't give your sons over to Gomorrah. Don't check out and just let them be passively influenced by this world. You have a responsibility to do what? To give them God's truth, to tell them about the bad that's out there, but especially to tell them about the goodness of God's beautiful design for our bodies and relationships. and to feed them with these things so that they're not hungering and thirsting for the perversity of this world, but they say, I'm full with God's goodness. I love what God's made. I love his design. Yes, I can't wait to enjoy these things in marriage. I can practice this properly because it's better. If our kids don't hear about these sensitive matters from the church and from their parents, then they'll hear about it from culture. And what's culture gonna tell them? I was in a conversation once about with a young man who told me, he said, yeah, I learned about all of this sensitive stuff from kids at my school who showed me images, who showed me things on their phone, who told me dirty jokes. That's how I learned about this stuff. But then I heard another kid in the same room, and he said, you know, I learned about this stuff from my parents. And they sat me down, they told me about it. Or when it would come up naturally in conversations, or while we were going about life, they'd share with me and say, you know, you're gonna hear about this in the world. This is what this is, but here's how God's design is better. And there's something about being prepared for this and not saying, oh, my parents are hiding this from me. That's, oh, my parents love me enough to talk to me about the difficult and sensitive things in this in this world. Now, parents, I charge you with Thanking care of knowing your own children and in a way that is proper and natural and goes along with your family to do this and do this well. And I charge you children as your parents talk to you about anything. But yeah, you know, there are those conversations that are a bit more of a serious nature. You feel, whoa, mom and dad hasn't talked to me about this before. I want to. Counsel you children to listen and to give your parents the honor that is given unto them and say, hey, if God would have my parents speak to me about something, it ought to be important. And I should listen to them because they really know what they're talking about and God, God has put it upon their hearts and put it in his word to have my parents talk to me about important things. Fathers. We need to acknowledge a special responsibility here. You see, Lot led his family into Sin City. Why? We need to see why Lot did this and his motivation so that we might be able to see them in ourselves and cut them off before it goes too far. Lot led his family into Sin City because he elevated the cultural gods of comfort and wealth above the spiritual needs of his family. We talked about this before, Lot traded fellowship with Abraham and God's people for companionship with Sodom. And when he did that, all the way back in Genesis chapter 13 and 14, he made this grave error because he never asked, where will I receive, where will I find fellowship and accountability and the blessings of God's people? What church will I attend in Sodom? He never asked that. He just dove in and threw his family into the fire. Why? Because he was so captivated by the riches that could be obtained by living closer to that city? Are we being pulled fathers by the cultural God's wealth and comforts? And are we subtly denigrating the importance of the fellowship of God's people, the accountability of believers, the importance of a good and godly church. Lot dealt with the stresses of fatherhood by drowning himself in alcohol, distractions. Being a parent is stressful, isn't it? And I'm making it more stressful for you this morning by telling you about what you need to be doing and how do you need to be thinking about these things. I'm not going to say I'm sorry, but it is stressful. It's stressful to me. Now, how do we deal with that stress? I know fathers who have loved their children, but when push comes to shove, they have failed to love their children because they have been so distracted. They have chosen distraction over duty. and they've drowned themselves in alcohol, you'd find the dad glued to video games in the key moments when the parents, when he needs to be engaged and talking to his kids. And why is it that when the kids say, hey, I heard so-and-so say this at school today about some perverse thing, and dad's not there, or dad's distracted, or dad's not jumping on the moment, why? because he's checked out from his duties and he's chosen distraction. It's easier, I know that. But it's not what God calls us to do, man. And of course, that's what happened with Lot in the cave. He turns to alcohol. How did he have all this with him in the cave? But it's what he turns to, it's what his daughters give him. in order to get him right where he needs to be, to be taken advantage of and shamed. Parents, there is help to be found when you are stressed out by the weight of raising godly children in this world, but that help comes to those who humbly ask for it. and I want you to know that there is help to be found. Talk to any of the elders of the church, talk to any in the church who model this well, and I'm sure they will jump on it and help you to know how to navigate this. I want you to know that's available. Lot isolates himself. Lot doesn't ask for help. Lot buries himself with his daughters in this death-like cave, and he distracts himself from his duties and he untethers himself from accountability to God's people. You know, pride was also at work here. Think about that. He goes from Sodom and he wants to go to Zohar, but then he goes from Zohar to the hills, and you say, great, that's what the angels wanted him to do all along. They said, flee to the hills, and he said, oh, can I go to Zohar? Well, he's ended up in the hills, but where were the angels wanting him to go? To Abraham, who was in the hills. Where does Lot go? To a cave. He is too full of pride and cowardice to flee to God's people where Abraham is and to get help. And he leaves himself stranded. I do not want that of anyone in our congregation. There is such darkness here, and I've been talking about it, preaching about it for so long, but I want you to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a way out of the cave, there is light on the other side, and you'll find it in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But first, let me show you how we get there. The children that were born of this perverse relationship would become the fathers of who? The text tells us, the fathers of two tribes, the Ammonites and the Moabites. Now, who were they? more darkness, very bad influences on Israel. They were not friends. They were not good neighbors, bad influences. However, there is one famous Moabite woman who would descend from this dark cave. Her name is Ruth. You know, Ruth, whole book of the Bible written about her. She is the great, great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of one of Lot's daughters. one of Lot's children. And Ruth also had a problem related to sexual ethics. Because when her husband died, she was unable to carry on the family name. She had a lot of the same concerns and desires as Lot's daughters, which were natural. But she did not turn like them to wicked schemes. She did not isolate herself from God's people. She sought in all purity a godly solution to her frustrations. She waited with pure intentions for Boaz to notice her, to marry her. This Moabite woman and this man from the tribe of Judah would become the great-grandparents of David, the king, and then they'd become the great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandparents of Jesus, our Savior. Yes, the dark cave has its place in Christ's lineage, his ancestry. but it's the Savior Jesus who would come and would lead his people out of the dark cave and would give them the power to live after the example of Ruth and Boaz. You see, there is hope for all who have committed sexual sin to leave that guilt in the past. And some of you say, that's me, pastor. You don't even know the darkness that I carry. I don't, but God does. Jesus knows. You do not need to carry that guilt with you any longer. Why? Because if you belong to Christ Jesus, the spirit of Sodom has been nailed to the cross. Fully paid, gone, in the past. Jesus nailed Sodom to the cross, and guess what? He gives you a new spirit, a spirit of purity and cleansing, a spirit that says no to sexual temptation, a spirit that moves forward in all purity, the very Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God that dwells within you and enables you to live life. Ruth, like Boaz, yes, you will struggle. Yes, you may at times slip, but the promise of the gospel is there is a way forward. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Walk in that light. Flee from sexual immorality. Such were some of you, but no longer. There's great hope as well for Christian parents who are convicted of how far they've fallen in their responsibilities. Jesus says, so you haven't done your duties up till now, but now you can. Now you can talk to your children. Now you can discuss things with them. You can even say, I messed up, I failed. I should have talked to you about this long ago, but let's do this now. There is hope for new beginnings. There is hope for purity that comes out of the dark cave and into the light of redemption because of Christ Jesus. Do you believe that? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the very promise of scripture that we are cleansed in Christ, that we are your people and called to walk in purity, no longer as the pagans do, but Lord, We fool ourselves if we think that these temptations and these scandals do not find their slippery way back into our lives. And Lord, we know that when we are thinking we are the safest, that is perhaps when we are at most at danger. So convict us, but also comfort us. Warrant us, but also show us the wonders of Christ's gospel. We pray for both of these things this morning as we pray your blessing upon your people. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.