Genesis 19:12-29
Judgment Day

  1. Lot’s Faith; Lot’s Doubt
    1. The First Warning and Lot’s Response
      1. Take your family and get out! (12)
        1. As with Noah, God deals with the family on the basis of the head of household.
        2. This story deliberately invokes the flood story, this time on a more local level.
      2. Sodom’s outcry is great (13)
        1. Their sins cry out for punishment; God will stay his hand no longer
        2. They have come on a fact-finding mission: Is Sodom as evil as reported?
        3. One night in the city gives them all the data they need. They are ready to carry out the Lord’s judgment.
      3. Lot believes the warning and goes to warn his sons-in-law
        1. actually his future sons-in-law
        2. Lot’s two daughters "have not known a man" (8)
        3. These prospective family members are men of Sodom; Lot has made an unholy alliance, light fellowshipping with darkness, good with evil
      4. They respond as the sons of darkness always respond to the threat of God’s judgment — They laugh
        1. They mock him. Come on old man! So last night was rough, so the men of the city were particularly bad. They haven’t brought down God’s judgment for all there past sins. Why should this one trigger him?
        2. Where is the promise of his coming? From the beginning of the world until now things go on just as always.
        3. They forget the sign of Noah’s flood, a sign that is about to be pronounced in fire and smoke upon their corpses
        4. They laugh
          1. just as Abraham had laughed at God’s promise of a son
          2. just as Sarah had laughed at the same promise
          3. so the warning of impending doom seems impossible to them
          4. Yet the Lord had pity on Abraham and Sarah and granted them faith.
          5. But for these men, nothing. They are hardened in their sin and left to their just condemnation.
    2. The Second Warning and Lot’s Response
      1. The tension mounts.
      2. The morning is dawning and still Lot is not safely away
        1. It is judgment day that is dawning. What will happen when the sun of righteousness appears?
        2. Some more irony here.
        3. When Lot met them in the gate he thought to protect them and send them early on their way (v. 2) so they would not be attacked by the townspeople.
        4. Now it is the angels who are hurrying him along to save him from a greater terror — the wrath of God.
      3. They urge him to hurry (15)
        1. Take your wife and daughters who are here
          1. It is too late to preach the coming judgment to your sons-in-law and neighbors
          2. You have time only to take those who are yours and leave
          3. The day of the Lord has come like a thief in the night; judgment day is dawning
        2. If you wait any longer you will be consumed as well. (15b)
      4. Lot Lingered
        1. This is a single sentence in Hebrew. Your versions don’t do you any favors if they’re like the NKJV saying, "And while he lingered…."
          1. You need the punch of this single sentence. "But he lingered."
          2. The Hebrew text prepared for use in the synagogues even has a mark at the end of this sentence indicating that the lector should pause at this point.
          3. But Lot lingered ….
        2. In the face of a frantic warning of impending doom, Lot delays. He dawdles.
          1. He had fed them the bread of haste the night before, unleavened bread.
          2. But he was not prepared to leave; his loins were not girded up, his staff was not in his hands.
          3. He lingers; he cannot bear to leave
        3. Is he thinking back to the day that he chose to live in Sodom?
          1. He and Abraham were surrounded by such vast wealth that their servants who herded their sheep were fighting over water and grazing rights.
          2. Oh, he had been powerful then. A lord among men.
          3. And Abraham had gesture expansively toward the north and south and east and said take what you want and I’ll take the other half
          4. And Lot’s eyes had settled on Sodom, a place pleasant to the eyes, watered like the garden of God … a place outside the boundaries of the Promised Land … but so what? He knew a good deal when he saw one.
          5. He moved there with his vast wealth and many servants.
          6. And his status in the city can only have improved when his uncle Abraham had rescued Sodom and all its goods from the hands of Chedorlaomer who had conquered them and taken them captive.
          7. He met his wife there, we assume, for no prior mention is made of her
          8. He fathered his two daughters there and had been about to marry them off to fine, upstanding men of the city.
          9. Can it really be true? Is all this about to be destroyed? Shall it be gone in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye? Is the last trumpet about to sound for Sodom and Gomorrah?
          10. If only he could laugh it off like his sons-in-law and wake up in the morning and find himself a rich man still, living in a lush and fertile plain.
          11. How can he bear to leave this place? Where else is there but here? This is home he’s about to leave, his country, his servants, his wealth, everything he holds dear.
      5. The men grab him and his wife and daughters and rush them out (16)
        1. While Lot stood contemplating what a great loss this would be, God is still in the process of saving his life
        2. God is determined to spare Lot (as we shall see, because of Abraham’s intercession)
        3. These men had just last night reached out and pulled him into the house, saving him from the surrounding horde
        4. Now they reach into the house and pull him out, saving him from the destruction that is about to strike.
    3. The Third Warning and Lot’s Response
      1. You see how the tension builds? Warning upon warning upon warning.
      2. Can you not see your own folly and unbelief in him?
        1. Have we not been told again and again that this world and its treasures are passing away?
        2. Yet still we dawdle. Still we can’t seem to grasp it. Still we seek for treasure here, to amass wealth, to provide for our own comfort and pleasure and entertainment and all the wonderful satisfying things this world provides
        3. If Lot seems foolish to you, are we not often as foolish, clinging to what we cannot keep rather than fleeing to where life is, in Christ?
        4. You want to grab him and shake some sense into him.
        5. Let this story grab you and shake some sense into you.
        6. The end is near! The judgment of God is at hand! Believe!
      3. Escape for your life! (17)
      4. Don’t look back!
        1. Put it all behind you
        2. Look forward to the life God has ahead of you; everything behind is lost
        3. A look back is a betrayal of your heart, a statement that the treasures of Sodom mean more to you than the life God offers
      5. Escape, or you will be destroyed!
        1. The life you chose in Sodom, the life of this world, is no longer viable; it’s not an option
        2. Either the life God offers or none at all
      6. And still the fool doesn’t get it!
      7. The mountains are too far, he whines. I might not make it. (18,19)
        1. Has he grasped the sovereignty of God in judgment only to underestimate that sovereignty in salvation?
        2. Possibly. But he’s also trying desperately to retain a corner of the world that he knew and loved.
        3. If I can’t have Sodom, can’t I at least have a little city, a little piece of this world? (20)
        4. And God in abundant mercy grants him even this, although the next passage will show that Lot could not live there either and is forced into the mountains where God told him to flee.
      8. God even says, "I cannot do anything until you arrive there."
        1. An amazing statement. Lot does not stop to question it.
        2. But we know why. Abraham has been a successful mediator.
        3. Abraham has been a picture of Christ
          1. Why does God delay his judgment on the world?
          2. Because we are still in it, and God’s judgment cannot come while we are still here.
          3. Christ has negotiated that for us and God cannot go back upon his settled word.
        4. In the midst of impending judgment, Lot should be ready, and he should hurry, but he should not panic. God cannot do anything until he is safe.
        5. So it is with us as the world around us invites the final judgment.
  2. Sodom’s Destruction
    1. The Judgment on Sodom
      1. The Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah
        1. again, deliberately evokes the flood.
        2. The language of "rain" as the instrument of God’s judgment
        3. But if this is more local than the flood, the image is more terrifying
        4. scorching fire and scalding coals plummet down upon the land
      2. All the inhabitants were overthrown
        1. In the great day of God’s judgment, there is no battle
        2. Only God coming as a warrior executing justice without a scratch on him.
      3. And what grew on the ground was destroyed
        1. the very reason Lot chose the place is gone
        2. It had looked so good; it had made such promises
        3. But in the day of God’s judgment it could not provide anything
        4. Such is the lure of the world
      4. The place is utterly destroyed, never to be habitable again.
      5. Everything is lost.
      6. Woe to those who had found their lives in Sodom; their lives are lost
      7. Woe to Lot, who had found his treasure there; his treasure is gone
      8. Let us never forget the coming day of judgment. In that day there will be no Zoar to flee to
    2. The Judgment on Lot’s Wife
      1. In the midst of this, Lot’s wife betrays her worldly heart.
      2. She looks back … with regret? with pity? with longing? … at all that she had left behind.
      3. Life is nothing to her if it cannot be life in that world. Her heart is there.
      4. She had left them buying and selling, marrying and being given in marriage (her own daughters had been about to be given in marriage), and now it was all destroyed and she can’t imagine life any other way.
      5. This is what Christ means when he says, "Remember Lot’s wife."
        1. Lk 17 — Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; 29"but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30"Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed. 31"In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. 32"Remember Lot’s wife. 33"Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.
        2. She wanted to save that way of life and so she lost it. She was not willing to lose that life and so preserve herself.
        3. She loved the world and the things that were in it.
        4. So when that world was destroyed, she was destroyed just as her fellow citizens of Sodom were destroyed.
        5. For Deut. 29:23 tells us the land became salt when the fire and brimstone rained down
          1. The ground, being salty, was useless for further agriculture; and this is true of the Dead Sea region to this day
          2. So the people of Sodom, returning to dust, became salt like the ground
          3. And Lot’s wife with them
      6. Imagine! Imagine in that great day when Christ returns and we are caught up to meet him in the air. Imagine on that day looking down past your feet to the ground below, looking down wistfully, longingly, regretfully. So much left undone! So much I wanted to do, to take that vacation, buy that car, write that book, run for political office, get married, have children…. Who could be that nuts?
      7. Would not Christ say, If you love it so much, then go back? And there you would be on the earth you love, being destroyed by fire.
      8. Let us begin now to put behind us those things of earth that so easily entangle us.
      9. Let us begin now to fix our eyes upon Christ and to set all our hope on the riches we have in him.
  3. Abraham’s Perspective
    1. Abraham’s Heavenly Perspective
      1. We are suddenly reminded that this story, after all, is really about Abraham.
      2. The camera pulls back at this point.
      3. We have been in the midst of the action, down in the plain, with the world crumbling around us.
      4. Now we draw back to a loftier view.
      5. Abraham arises early in the morning to see what God’s judgment will be and whether his intervention on behalf of Sodom has been successful
      6. He goes to the place where he had stood before the Lord (27)
        1. this is significant
        2. This is God’s perspective, as well as Abraham’s
        3. It is as though Abraham is looking down from heaven to see what is happening among the sons of men.
      7. From that vantage point he sees the smoke of the judgment of Sodom ascending. He looks down to see it coming up.
        1. This image must be familiar to anyone who has read the book of Revelation
        2. When Babylon, the harlot, is overthrown, her smoke rises up. Babylon, the city of this world, the spiritual dwelling of all who love this present life and find their treasure here.
        3. Here is the image God gives of that — After these things I heard a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, "Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power belong to the Lord our God! 2"For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her." 3Again they said, "Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!" 4And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, "Amen! Alleluia!" (Rev 19:1ff.)
      8. So Abraham must confess God’s judgment just. There was none righteous, not even one.
      9. Observe how safe Abraham is from this vantage point
        1. The judgment does not come near him
        2. He has believed God’s promise; he has considered the hope of Christ greater treasure than the wealth of Sodom.
        3. He has considered the Promised Land, a mere picture of heaven, a better dwelling place than that fertile valley.
        4. So he has laid up his treasure in heaven where Christ is.
        5. His faith has been vindicated.
        6. Nothing of all that God has given him has been troubled. He remains a prosperous man.
        7. He is in no danger here.
      10. Come, let us shake off our doubts lest we be like Lot, escaping only as through the fire.
      11. Let us believe the promises of God which are Yes in Christ
        1. He is our treasure; what can the world offer us?
        2. He is our portion; with him we will be content.
        3. Why should we get attached to what we cannot keep when we’ve already been given the One we cannot lose?
    2. Abraham’s Successful Intercession
      1. Abraham’s mediation has not been entirely unsuccessful. He has saved Lot.
      2. In the middle of the flood, we are told "God remembered Noah," meaning he remembered his promises to Noah to save him.
      3. The comparable phrase here would be "God remembered Lot."
      4. Instead we get "God remembered Abraham."
        1. It is because of Abraham, that Lot was saved.
        2. It was Abraham’s righteousness, that was deemed sufficient when he pled for Lot
        3. When Lot hesitated the angels grabbed him and hustled him out … because God was remembering Abraham.
      5. So we end with this glorious picture of Christ in the person of Abraham
        1. Abraham pled with God and God gave him all who were his, His nephew and his two grand-nieces
        2. So they were snatched out of the midst of the day of judgment and were saved.
        3. Has not Christ pled for us as well?
        4. Has not his plea been accepted?
        5. Is he not even now in heaven looking down upon this Sodom in which we live and making sure that his mark, the Holy Spirit, is upon us?
        6. In the day of judgment we will be yanked out of the fire as by angels and brought to the place where our treasure is.

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