Answers in Genesis - Sunday School - Fall: Lesson 11

Lord, we thank you so much for this Lord's Day just to be with your people, and what a blessing it is to be with the family of God, our eternal family. And while, we know that you are in the business of saving sinners, you have brought sinners into the local church and so we expect that as we gather together each Sunday or throughout the week, that we ourselves are gonna bring a sin, with us, and our brothers and sisters are gonna have sin, and so it's not surprising to us. that we have, various challenges in the body of Christ, but we know that you are the savior, not just the one that will bring us to heaven, but you're the one that is rescuing us from sin daily as your Spirit grants us repentance.

Help us to walk in humility and repentance today as we engage your word.

Pray that you do your persevering work in our lives, this morning, we pray this in Christ's name. Amen. All righty. It's good to see everybody.

let's, let's go ahead and do just a little bit of review. as you guys know, we see Sunday school as a para-family ministry, not something that replaces the family but comes alongside the family. We're trying to serve all of you guys in both doing stuff that our curriculum is pretty much the same here as what's going on with the kids. We're actually a little bit behind the kids, but we're hoping to catch up.

And, in our curriculum, we're going through the seven seas of biblical history. creation, we covered last year. we also covered corruption, just how did, how did the fall occur, and we also covered catastrophe, the flood, and we also covered confusion, the Tower of Babel. We're actually in the confusion section.

Basically, when we talk about confusion, we're talking about everything that's happening after the Tower of Babel leading up to the birth of Christ. And so, when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His sons. We have Christ arriving. In human history And then, Christ going to the cross, an unexpected turn for his, disciples, but as we, look at the scripture, we understand why Christ went to the cross and died for our sins.

And then, biblically we have that we're awaiting the return of Christ. So that's the seven seas of history that we see throughout the Bible. In this particular quarter of our curriculum, called God is faithful, we've covered all of these items, That are all around inside of the confusion stage, and today we're gonna be talking about Sodom and Gomorrah. And so we're gonna be kicking off a lot of stuff within there.

But before we jump into our study of the text, I've asked one of our high school students, a senior in high school, Josiah Tay, to come and address the question for us, how can God be both merciful and just? So why don't you guys welcome Josiah Tay. That's OK. Good morning.

Imagine for a moment that you're You were accidentally speeding. Now don't raise your hands because I know this is. I'm sure you guys, but imagine you're speeding, coming to church, and naturally a cop pulls you to the side and stops you for speeding. and you tell him, I was accidentally speeding, I was coming to church, and I really wanted to make it on time for Pastor Mike's amazing Sunday school class.

the cop really has two options. He can show you justice and he can say, I'm gonna uphold the law and I'm gonna fine you for speeding, because you broke the law. Or he can say, what, I'm gonna show you mercy and I'm gonna let you off the hook. I'm going to forgive you.

But the key to realize is the cop cannot do both. You can't be both just and merciful at the same time. He can't find you and not find you. And Christians are faced with this supposed dilemma today between justice and mercy.

Because we have this question, how can God be both merciful and just? How can God punish someone and at the same time, forgive them? Well, we're gonna address this question today, how can God be both merciful and just? And we're gonna really look at one main thing that His justice and mercy were reconciled together at the cross.

We're gonna break this down really into three main sections. First, we're going to look at the supposed incompatibility between God's mercy and justice. Secondly, we'll look at the implications. what if God is only just?

What if he's only merciful? What if he's neither? And then finally, we're going to see how we can ultimately reconcile these two concepts. So first of all, let's take a look at the supposed incompatibility between justice and mercy.

first of all, we have to realize that justice is simply acting fairly and rightly. It's giving someone according to what they deserve. and you just have to look no further than our justice system today. We have punishments in place where we punish people according to what we believe they deserve, whether it's fines, prison sentences, or even in some cases, the death penalty.

And it's very clear throughout the Bible that God is indeed a God of justice. Isaiah 61:8 says, for I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrongdoing. In my faithfulness, I will reward my people.

So it's really clear that God, He rewards those who do right, and he punishes those who do wrong. He is a just God. He gives people according to what they deserve. But then on the other hand, we have this thing called mercy, which is simply not giving someone what they deserve, actually withholding punishment when it is due.

And once again, the Bible mentions it, mentions hundreds of times that God is a God of mercy. Psalms 103:8 says that the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. So now we're faced with this contradiction, this dilemma. We have a God who's both just, who punishes wrongdoers, and we have a God who's merciful, who doesn't punish wrongdoers, who withholds punishment, who doesn't give them what they deserve.

So how can we reconcile this? Well, before we move on, I'd like to first ask us, why should we even care about this topic? Why should we care that God is merciful and just or not merciful and just? I really think there's at least 2 reasons.

The first reason is that we're calling into question the character of God. We're asking ourselves, is God really who he says he is? Or is he a God who compromises in his character? Is he a God who has to figure out when he's just and when he's merciful?

This is really a question of whether our God is trustworthy or not, because he tells us Himself, I'm a just God, and I'm a merciful God. but the second reason we should care is because there are huge implications if God is not both just and merciful. So let's look at those implications. imagine if God was solely just and he wasn't merciful, he wasn't gracious.

I think this would be a really frightening picture because we know that God is perfectly holy. He's perfectly righteous. He is the standard setter. He has created this moral law.

And what we realize is that God's standard is like the perfect bull's eye on a dartboard. It's, it's perfection. And if we don't live up to that standard of perfection, we're ultimately guilty of all. As James tells us, if we break the law on one point, we're guilty of everything.

And we know that as, as fallible sinful humans, there is no way we can ever live up to God's perfect standard. His, His holy and righteous standard. And thus if God is only just, then really our situation is hopeless. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves, nothing we can do to redeem ourselves.

So on the flip side though, imagine if God was only merciful. At first this may seem like a cheery picture. Oh, God is the only merciful God who forgives everyone. He doesn't really care what we do, and that in the end everything will turn out well.

But imagine if we had a justice system today, that was only merciful. in 2012, James Holmes, he killed 12 people and injured 70 people, at a theater in Colorado. It was a mass shooting and he actually, I believe he was sentenced to 12 life sentences without parole, and an additional 3,318 years in prison. That's a long time.

It's a large punishment for a large crime. But imagine if our justice system was only merciful and we said, what, we'll forgive you, we'll let you off the hook. Imagine if we just forgaves serial killers and rapists and there was, there was no punishment. Honestly, today would be a really, really scary place to live.

Joshua Harris puts it like this, quote, If you think about it, a God who doesn't hate evil is terrifying. True goodness hates evil. True righteousness and justice must stand in opposition to injustice and unrighteousness. So what we see is if God is only merciful, he's really not a good God.

He's not a righteous God. So we have this dilemma of justice and mercy. And we see that if God is only just or only merciful, he's really not a God that we would want to worship. He's really not a God that gives us amazing.

So how do we resolve this conflict? Or do we have to make this compromise and say, God, he has to sometimes be just, he has to sometimes be merciful? Well, I ultimately think that his justice and mercy, we can best be reconciled together. At the cross, because the Bible tells us that all of us have violated God's law, and because we violated God's law, His justice says that we as human beings must be punished because we're criminals and we're lawbreakers.

But God didn't punish us. He showed us mercy. But he didn't push aside his justice. He didn't say, I'm gonna push aside this punishment, I'm gonna push aside what I know is right, so that I can forgive you.

Instead, what he did is he sent His only Son to ultimately fulfill his justice and mercy together perfectly. See, Isaiah 53:5 says that he, God's Son, was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace and with his wounds.

We are healed. See, these wounds are wounds that all of us deserve. We deserve to be crushed and tortured and ultimately killed upon the cross. But Jesus showed us incredible mercy by forgiving us and taking that punishment upon Himself.

And this is really the amazing truth of Christianity, that is that God didn't compromise. He couldn't because he is perfectly just. And so he fulfilled his justice and mercy together at the cross, and they lived in perfect harmony. Randy Elkhorn says, quote, grace isn't about God lowering his standards.

It's about God fulfilling those standards through the substitutionary suffering of the standard setter. The standard setter Himself, the perfect God of the universe, came down to die and fulfill that punishment, to uphold both justice and mercy. So at the end of the day, I think there's really two things we can take away. The first one is a renewed appreciation and gratitude for Christ's incredible sacrifice, for the amazing hope that he offers to us because he ultimately was able to reconcile these two concepts of justice and mercy together.

And that's the hope we can share with others as well. but I think the second thing we can take into consideration is an appreciation for God's unwavering character. Once again, this confirms that God is not a God of compromise. in other religions like Islam, we have a God like Allah, and Allah does claim to be a merciful God all throughout the Quran.

What's, what's really interesting is that Allah has no way of reconciling these two concepts of justice and mercy. He has to show mercy, but only at the expense of justice. When someone has to be punished and he wants to be merciful and light and put aside that punishment, he, he has no way to uphold justice at the same time. Instead, he has to brush away that moral law.

He has to brush away that side of his character, and he has to compromise. We have an amazing God. To do that because of the cross. I'm gonna end with a quote from Trevin Wax in Counterfeit Gospels.

He says, quote, Justice and mercy are not at war. They meet at the cross, and we can find both judgment and mercy as good news. We need only recognize our guilt in light of God's holiness and then bask in forgiveness in light of God's. And that, that's the amazing harmony of gas.

All right. Right Great job, man. Appreciate it. Excellent, excellent job.

Josiah, where, when does your apologetics, or where, where are you teaching apologetics? Online, OK, and is it, is it mostly like, students it's adapted OK If somebody wanted to ask you about it afterwards, they could? OK. Great job.

Appreciate it, Josiah speaking to us. Josiah's, teaching his own apologetics class online, to students that are part of Speech and Debate. And so if you're interested in finding out about his apologetic class, you can talk to him afterwards. so, really appreciate Josiah coming out.

He is, he is a high school student in our Speech and Debate Club, in San Bernardino, and, So, and then, and I'll give a little advertisement here too, if, if you're interested in, in taking apologetics class here at Cornerstone, we're gonna start this upcoming Wednesday, back here in room, I think 104. And, basically, the speech that Josiah just delivered is one of about 100 different topics that the speech and debate students, learn to answer throughout the course of a year, or a four-year career in high school.

And so we're gonna actually be covering all 100 of those questions this year. And so if you'd like to come, you can sign up online, go to Apologetics Matters.

it is during the day, so it's designed for students, but also like, retired people or people who don't, who work graveyard, they wanna come out at 9 o'clock on a Wednesday. But you can also take it online. So you can sign up online, you can listen to the lectures, download them, all the quizzes, you can take the quizzes online, and you can get all the articles and PowerPoints and stuff like that. So, if you want to do that, All right.

let's go ahead and jump in. If you guys would, open up to Genesis chapter 19. I'm gonna do just a little bit more review that's gonna take us up to this chapter. Last, if you weren't here last week, we covered a couple basic foundational things that really are gonna run throughout the whole, not just this quarter, but really throughout the whole class.

We talked last week about the Bible being authoritative. because it comes from God Himself. Therefore, the Bible doesn't really need any outside validation since it comes from God Himself. That doesn't mean that there is no outside validation, right?

Last week we said there is outside validation, but that the Bible doesn't need it. so, so the Bible is the highest source of authority because it comes from God Himself. We said, we said last week that it's reasonable for God to swear by himself. Remember when he swore to Abraham?

He's looking for the highest thing that he could swear by. And what was the highest thing possible? Himself. So all arguments for starting points, all arguments for ultimate authority are ultimately what Circular, yeah, you have to be, you have to start with circular reasoning to get to your ultimate authority.

And so God, he, he swears by himself because he is the ultimate authority. we also talked last week about, the Bible being inerrant because God cannot lie. we also talked about how that we've, the Bible's been preserved, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our Lord stands forever. So, we could argue all day long that God's authoritative, but if we don't really have the Bible in our hands as preserved, what good does it?

what good is it for us? But, we've argued that, God has preserved His word. It's also sufficient. We talked about sufficiency.

we talked about using a literal historical grammatical hermeneutic, that's a big mouthful, but we, we broke that down last week that as we interpret the Bible, we interpret it literally as opposed to a spiritual meeting like origin presented. we, we argue for historical, interpretation, not gashikta. The Bible gives real history, not just story. It's not just little fables that we're telling our kids at night.

and it's grammatical, so it's not just the ideas, but it's the actual words. That's why we talk about verbal plenary inspirations. We talked about that last week. We gave you examples of grammatical, historical, and literal from the text of scripture.

And, and then we talked about the fact that we want to do exegesis. What is it that we don't want to do? I of Jesus. So ex to Jesus, we want to pull the meaning out of the passage.

We don't want to just have our preset ideas and force them into the passage, right? That's what we're trying to do in this class. OK, with that, Review then In Genesis 18, we're not gonna, we're gonna just give you a little summary of what happens in Genesis 18 to set up 19. Remember in Genesis 18?

You have these 3 travelers that at first, they just look like ordinary men. and they come upon Abraham and his wife, Sarah, and Sarah makes a meal. Abraham says, hey, go, go make a meal, and then God begins, or these three men begin to talk to Abraham, and one of the men is referred to as Lord. And Abraham is talking to the Lord, which seems to be, it's mysterious, but it seems to be, God revealing Himself in a preincarnate state.

Some people have argued for this being called what's called a, a theophony, like God appearing in the form of a man. Some people actually, theologians call it a Christophony. Of Christ actually pre-incarnate Christ appearing as a man, because they're actually sitting down and they're partaking of a meal and, and by all appearances, they look like men. But one of them is being referred to as Lord.

And it's the Lord that again reminds Abraham that a son is going to be born to Sarah. And what's Sarah's response? Yeah, yeah, he's laughing, right? And Abraham had laughed previously, correct?

And so, they're, they're laughing, they don't really, how in the world can Sarah in her old age, how can Abraham in his old age have a child? And yet, we know from back all the way back to chapter 12 and 15, and then in 17, there's this reminder of this thing that we call the Abrahamic covenant. That God is, is making a, an agreement. With Abraham and really for the sake of all mankind, that God will bless Abraham with a child with seed.

He will cause through Abraham all nations to be blessed, and there will be a land promise that will come to his people. They will inherit the land that God has called Abraham too. So it's seed, blessing, and land. Can everybody say that?

Seed, blessing, land. Those are the three components of the Abrahamic covenant. And by the way, This covenant that God had made with Abraham, it wasn't like God said, OK, Abraham, you do this, and then I'll do this. When in the original giving of the Abrahamic covenant, it's what we call unilateral.

Everybody say unilateral. Unilateral means it's only bound upon one person, una, uni, right? So, Abraham splits these animals way back earlier in Genesis, and who walks through the animals? Is it God and Abraham?

No, it's only God. God works through the animals. This sounds really weird to us, but this was an ancient way of cutting, literally cutting a covenant, which is the literal language. And so God bears upon himself for his name's sake to be faithful to this promise that he made to to Abraham.

And that's why throughout the rest of the Old Testament, you'll frequently see God saying things like, I will keep my promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for my name's sake. You see that that phrasing being used over and over and over again, this unilateral covenant. And so God is here, in chapter 18. He's reminding Abraham of the, of the covenant that the seed is gonna come through Isaac.

And then he also, the, the two of the men take off, and the Lord is still talking with Abraham, and he begins to reveal to Abraham what? Does anybody remember? What he begins to reveal to Abraham in chapter 18. Say it again.

Who he is. Close but no cigar. What does he begin to reveal? Yeah, so he begins to reveal the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And that's where you see this very interesting interchange between Abraham and the Lord, where Abraham, as it were, is now, he begins to enter into intercession. There's like, it, it's, it's a prayer as it were. He says, God, you are just. And so please listen to me.

What if there are 50 righteous, are you going to destroy Sodom? He says, no. OK, Lord, please don't get upset. I wanna ask you another question.

What if there's 40? And you guys know the story, 40, 30, all the way down to 10, and the Lord says, if there's just 10 righteous, I'm not gonna destroy the city. And so, so right in this dialogue in chapter 18, you see this concept of justice and mercy. That God is gonna spare the entire city if there's just 10 righteous people.

We're gonna talk about what we mean by righteous here in a little bit. And, but if not, God is bringing his judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah. Where have we seen already in Genesis, just great judgment coming down upon the whole earth? The flood OK, so here's just one city.

God has heard the outcry. Of one city or this plain area that includes Sodom and Gomorrah and actually a couple of other smaller cities we find out later. But this basic plain area, plains of Zohar, I think it's called, and so, God's, in his justice, he's coming to destroy them. Previously, we've seen the same motif in chapter 6 to 9.

Is that God looks out upon mankind, and he sees that every intent of his heart is continually evil. And so you can only imagine understanding the mercy of the Lord and the patience of the Lord. The fact that God would come and destroy the entire planet, how evil must the planet have been. And that God even delays, he announces his plan for judgment to Noah and then delays for approximately 100 years while Noah is preaching and building the ark.

And then in God's mercy, he saves how many people? 8 people out of the entire planet. And so we have a motif for this already. And so go ahead and turn to chapter 19.

And what we're gonna do is we're actually going to read through 19 together. I've got an audio clip from the NIB dramatized Bible and we're just gonna read right through. So, this is gonna come from the NIV. You can read through your copy.

let me get to chapter 19 here. OK, so Brian, if I click forward here, is that gonna start it for me? You have to start for me. OK.

OK, so we are going to go. Through verse 26, and then we're gonna stop it. All right. So I'll give you a little signal when we get to 26.

So, let's go ahead and read through. Brian will start the audio for us, and we're gonna read 1 to 26. The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.

My lords, he said, please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night, and then go on your way early in the morning. No, they answered, We will spend the night in the square. But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house.

He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sod, both young and old, surrounded the house. They called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind. And said, No, my friends, don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them.

But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof. Get out of our way, they replied. This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge. We'll treat you worse than them.

They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door, but the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. The two men said to Lot, Do you have anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here because we are going to destroy this place.

The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it. So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had pledged to marry his daughters. He said, Hurry and get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy the city. But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, Hurry, take your wife and your two daughters who were here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished. When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand in the hands of his wife and his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, Flee for your lives. Don't look back and don't stop anywhere in the plain.

Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away. But Lot said to them, No, my lords, please, your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains. This disaster will overtake me, and I'll die.

Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it. It is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared, he said to him.

Very well, I will grant this request too. I will not overthrow the town you speak of, but flee there quickly because I cannot do anything until you reach it. That is why the town was called Zohar. By the time Locke reached Soar, the sun had risen over the land.

Then the Lord rained down burning Sultan and Sodom. From the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land, but Lot's wife looked back and she became a pillar of salt. All right.

That's pretty heavy stuff. And just imagine, an initial reading, if you've never heard this story before and just being confronted. With this data, pretty overwhelming. Let's, let's make some observations of the text together.

what do we learn in verse one about the two men? Who were with the Lord at Abraham's place. So remember in 18, there were two men that left Abraham and the Lord, and we see two individuals in verse one, and what does verse one tell us they are? Angels, OK.

So now, it is somewhat mysterious in chapter 18, but now we know these are angels that have gone ahead of the Lord. And how do the men of the city respond to the visitors that Lot takes into his house for the night? Say it again. so Yeah, this, this is just unimaginable.

the The initial setup of the scene is somewhat, it's interesting. The two angels come into the town, they're in the town square. Lot comes out and wants to invite them into his home, which this would have been, everything that we know of Eastern culture, and when I say East, here we're talking about Middle East, but there are many cultures really around the world that have this. What you would call a high value placed on hospitality.

A lot of cultures have this real, real high sense of hospitality. That you would, you would rather die or you would rather somebody in your own family die than for a guest to be, to die or be assaulted. And so Lot comes out. And invites them to his home.

But the other interesting thing culturally here is In a lot of Eastern cultures, it would be impolite for you to immediately accept the request. And so, many Bible interpreters, the way they view this initial conversation in chapter 19 is nothing more than cultural politeness. Lot comes out and says, please come to my home. They say, no, we'll stay here in the square.

He says, no, come on into the home. No, we'll stay in the square. And so it's, the, the host is supposed to insist. And the guest is supposed to resist to a point and then eventually acquiesce, and that's what you have happening here.

Some suggest that Lot is coming out into the square because he knows how wicked the city is and he's worried for his guests, and that could be part of it as well, but clearly there's a high value being placed on hospitality which would be consistent with the culture of the time. and what do we see here? What clue do we get of Lot's character? And.

Let's see, like say verse. Verse 8. What's going on in, in verse 8? That Yeah, from our perspective, I can't imagine.

having, having some. Some craziness like this going on and saying, hey, here's my daughter, Anna. Why don't you go ahead and And violate her as opposed to the guests that I brought into my house. I can't even imagine that.

and so a lot, I think, rightly so, people look at Lot in this chapter and they say this guy is, this guy is no better than anybody else. In the city, right? And so what would be, what would be your guys' take on that? What, what would be your take on Lot offering his own daughters?

To these sexual predators the hospitality you already answered that. The value that they they Somebody in their family. guest. Yeah, there is, I think there is part of that.

There is something here culturally that would, is, would be very hard for us to understand, but it's still an ethic that actually exists in some cultures today. I'll come back and explain that in a second. Let's go to Mitch and then Barbara. Yeah, Mitch.

Daughter shouldn't. So those daughters should obey the relationship. Yeah, maybe Yeah, that's, that's interesting. OK, so, Michelle is saying that perhaps there's something going on here with the hospitality ethic and then Mitch is saying perhaps these daughters need to obey their, their dad, which I find odd, but that's OK.

Barbara, Yes, OK, so a low value of, of women, that would be a really good point, and we know that from study of ancient cultures that women are not highly valued in many, especially pagan cultures, Dan. I think it's Yeah, so Daniel's saying a lot of times people value a culture before they'll value biblical values, and that's part of what the, when the Bible speaks of do not love the world, it's obviously it's not talking about don't love people in the world, but a lot of times what it's talking about is world systems or culture that runs head to head with what the Bible says.

Yeah. Could it be a possibility God is, God is showing.

Yeah, it could be. Tell me your first name again, Luwan. So Luwan's suggesting that maybe that the sin of homosexuality is so great in the city that Lot actually knew that they would have no interest in his daughters and so he offers his daughters up realizing that they're not gonna have any interest in them whatsoever. could be, yeah, could be, whatever the case, we definitely don't come walk away thinking that Lot is a super, super righteous guy, right?

We're not, we're not walking away thinking, hey, Lot's my hero. But I think there's, in my opinion, there's a couple of things going on here. One is, is the incredible high ethic of hospitality, in Eastern cultures. Even to this day, if you go to certain places like the Philippines, so I'll give you just one example.

There's a part of the Philippines named Batangas where, the, all over the Philippines, they have a high sense of hospitality, but in this particular area, people walk around with guns and there's, there's a very low crime rate. but the, the main thing that they, they will not tolerate is if a guest comes into their town, if a guest is robbed, they will find the robber, even if it's a family member, take them into the forest and kill them. And so, if, so if you're a guest in their area, you feel pretty safe.

their, their sense of hospitality is so high, that is one of the worst things that you could possibly do in their culture.

They will not tolerate crime against guests. another example, there were some missionaries in the Philippines that were captured. They were actually, captured by these terrorists, these Filipino terrorists, and the Filipino terrorists were in a shootout with some military personnel that were off in the distance. At the same time, they're pulling food out of their backpacks and giving it to their captives because they have this high sense of, even though they had captured these folks, they felt like they needed to feed them and take care of them.

And I forget the, I'll have to track down the name of the missionary book, but it, it's, it's a book that's written by the wife who survived. Her husband was killed and several of the missionaries were killed in the crossfire. and this is, this happened like back in the late 90s, I believe. But one of the things that, that she noted was just the high sense of, even though they had taken captive these people, they felt like they needed to feed them and take care of them before they got their ransom.

And so that could be part of what's going on, but I, I think the, the, the big thing that we wanna focus on is in the previous chapter, God had reminded Abraham of the Abrahamic covenant and reminded him of this unilateral covenant, and then Abraham had interceded for Lot. He had made this prayer, knowing that Lot was there, knowing that Lot's wife and his daughters were there. now this intercession begins to make sense. And so we get to what's actually going on in Sodom, and you, you don't get the idea that Lot is this super incredibly righteous guy.

But who has shown mercy? According to verse 16, let's look at, look at verse 16 again. And while he lingered, OK, so the angels have already said, we're gonna destroy this place. We're gonna wipe it out.

And Lot lingers and so the man that is the angels took hold of his hand, his wife's hand, and the hands of the two daughters, and the Lord being merciful to him. And so We we have a Lot who puts this ethic of hospitality above the safety of his own daughters. We have Lot who's told to get out and he does not get out. And yet, and the angels have to physically grab him and take him out of the city.

And the reason is given to us right there in verse 16. The Lord being merciful to him, brought him out and set him outside the city. And so we have God being merciful to a man that in and of himself is clearly not righteous. This is not a man that stands righteous in because of his own works.

This is a man that is being counted righteous because of, we would argue, imputed righteousness that's been displayed in the previous chapter, that Abraham, who's been a receptor of this unilateral covenant has interceded. On behalf, almost as it were, as a type of Christ for Lot, and Lot and his family escaped this terrible, terrible judgment. so remember, Were, were there at least 10 righteous people in the city, if we, if we consider the whole context, were there 10 or more righteous people in Sodom?

No, clearly not, because God destroys the whole city.

And then so we see the fate of the cities of the plain. We also see the fate of Lot's wife as she turns around and she has turned into a pillar of salt, and there's been all kinds of speculation on exactly what that means. Some people have argued that she actually, got hit with part of the, the fire that was coming down out of heaven. You have people that try to argue if there's some volcano or what exactly happened.

I don't know necessarily that we have to argue any more than what the plain text says that, that God showered fire miraculously from heaven upon this whole plain area and destroyed people. Did he, could he have used some physical means to cause this miracle? Perhaps. but not necessarily.

And could there have been some, Some part of this fire that fell upon. Lot's wife and it's being described as a pillar of salt, perhaps, or did God just turn her to a pillar of salt?, the, the plain meeting would seem to be the latter. Let's talk about a couple, couple of other things as we wrap, come. bring things to a close here.

the depravity of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. And the surrounding cities. It is obvious from the descriptions of the detestable acts they were willing to commit. Throughout scripture, Sodom and Gomorrah are used as examples of wickedness and the judgment that follows from sin.

And we even use the word today, sodomy comes from Sodom. there used to be sodomy laws that were all over the United States and, and so that's where that word comes from. And sodomy is, is used to refer to the sexual perversions that we see today. but even though this is a sinful act, is the sin of sodomy, the sin that is described here in chapter 19, is it beyond the grace of God to forgive?

Clearly not. clearly not. Let's look, let's look at a couple of different passages, that remind us of God's justice and mercy. Let's go ahead and turn back to 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 7.

2 Peter 27 will give us A New Testament look upon this passage. In fact, let's start, Let's start in verse 4, just to get the context here. Verse 4, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down into hell and delivered them into the chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. Some people would argue that this is Genesis chapter 6.

That's not our burden right now to explain that. Verse 5, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of 8 people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. So reference to God flooding the entire world. And only saving Noah and his family.

Verse 6, and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemn them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly. So we've got 3 different things that are being listed as historical occurrences, demons being reserved in hell, the flooding of the entire world, and then Sodom and Gomorrah being turned to ashes. Verse 7, and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. We'll come back to that's, Verse 84, the righteous man dwelling among them tormented, his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds.

Verse 9, then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and reserve, the unjust under punishment for the Day of Judgment. So the whole, this whole line of thinking is being delivered to the people that Peter is writing to who are suffering for their faith. We say suffering for their faith, in the context of 2 Peter, we're talking about people who are having loved ones killed. We're talking about people who are losing their livelihoods as they convert from Judaism to Christianity.

we're talking about serious suffering and so the encouragement that Peter is giving them is that God is just. You're being hammered by the ungodly. You're losing life, you're losing jobs, you're losing the ability to provide for your families. you're being cut off from family members.

But God knows how to, he knows how to judge the ungodly, and he knows how to preserve the righteous, as it were, for himself. And so go back to verse seven. And delivered righteous Lot who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. This is interesting how the New Testament views Lot.

The New Testament views Lot as righteous. And, and views the rest of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah as, as the filthy wicked. And so there's a clear difference in the way the New Testament views the two. Righteous or lot, even though he lingered.

Even though he. Asked to go to not to go to a different city. God looks at Lot and, and gives us an insight into his heart that his heart was being plagued by the wickedness of that city. And that we, when we compare the two, we see a Lot being rescued by the mercy of God.

And then from a New Testament perspective being described as merciful. So mercy comes upon A lot, but what about people who have fallen into the sin of those that suffered? In Sodom and Gomorrah. Let's look over to 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

1 Corinthians chapter 6. We're gonna take a look at Verses 9 and 10. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? So who is it that will not inherit the kingdom of God?

The unrighteous. And so who are the unrighteous? The verse goes on, do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortions who inherit the kingdom of God. There's a list of sins of people who will not inherit the Kingdom of God, which we could put that into another phrase, will not go to heaven, will not go into the heavenly kingdom.

And the first that's mentioned in that list is not sodomites. The first mentioned in the list is not homosexuals. The first mentioned list is what fornicators. A fornicator is a person who has sex outside of marriage.

and, and more, and more specifically, a fornicator is someone, it's not necessarily someone who participates in gross acts of sexuality. They just have sex with somebody with the opposite sex who is not there. They're not married to you. And today, that's just like, that seems like a small sin in our culture.

Even amongst Christians, it's surprising how many Christian singles are not seeing this as that big of a deal. I was reading an article, just recently that, today's young people from like teens to around 25 just don't see nudity as any pro, they don't have any problem with nudity today. even in Christian circles, there's this idea that nudity is just not that big of a deal anymore. and the reasons for that are pretty obvious.

We won't, won't get into that. But fornicators are listed idolaters. An idolater is somebody who just worships a false god. So, if, if you're talking about the Paul writing in Corinth that somebody who goes down to the temple and just worships gods other than the true God, that's idolatry.

In our, in our culture, we live in a, a culture that, that tries to celebrate diversity of religions, that whether you follow Christ or don't follow Christ, if you happen to follow Buddha or Islam or any number of other faiths, today, that's expected that you should celebrate that. In the biblical terms, idolaters are not going to inherit the kingdom of heaven. nor adulterers. Adultery, what is that?

Somebody who has sex with somebody who's, who's married and they have sex with somebody else who's not, they're not married to. And so we have three sins that are listed before you ever get to homosexual or sodomites, which is actually those two terms are distinguishing between the, what would be considered the leadership role in a homosexual relationship and the submissive role in a homosexual relationship. Verse 10, thieves are listed. How about covetousness is put right in the same list with fornicators, adulterers, and homosexuals, those who covet.

They spend their lives just longing after things they cannot have drunkards. Those that imbibe alcohol and continually get drunk. Revilers. What's a reviler?

That's someone who's always trying to tear down people in authority. They're always talking bad about those that are in authority. it could be in, in lots of different contexts, but since Paul's writing to Christians, somebody who just, they just go from local church to local church and they're just constantly tearing down the leadership. They can, they just have nothing good to say about the pastors.

Nothing good to say about the deacons, the women's leadership, what have you. There's just this heart pattern of just Continually talking, reviling leaders, extortioners, right? You, you, you, you're trying to extort money from somebody else. All of these sins will not inherit the king of heaven.

But notice the turn in verse 11, and such were some of you. Such were some of you So right there in the Corinthian church, there are people who were previously described as fornicators, adulterers, extortioners, revilers, homosexuals. And so these are all people that were characterized by those sins. But what does Paul say?

But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord, and by the Spirit of our God. So can God save People that have exercised sins like, just like we see in Sodom and Gomorrah, Clearly so because right here in Corinth, one of the wickedest wickedest cities in the Roman Empire, you have people just like that who have come out of that background. So imagine worshiping. At the Corinthian church, and all of a sudden, some, some person who is a known temple prostitute walks into the church.

And suddenly they, they're believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. Another person who's a known homosexual prostitute in the temple walks in. And begins to worship the Lord and repent of their sin. At this time, this, we're not in the Roman Empire, Christianity had not had a whole lot of time to take root of the culture yet.

And so you've got another guy that walks in who's a polygamist, and he's got 5 wives. But he's repenting and now wanting to know the Lord. You got somebody else who's an extortionist. He's been extorting people his whole life for his business.

And he walks in and repents, and he wants to know the Lord. What church do you think this was? This was a church of people who had repented of sin, but had some pretty crazy stuff in their background. And so, and so you have Peter having to write this, this letter because you probably got people who have come to check out the church who are still living in this sin, and other people have come and repented of these types of sins.

And so you have a mixed crowd of people gathering together in the Corinthian church. So, but the hope that we, we see in this very passage, what Josiah was talking about earlier, is there is justice and mercy. Those that continually practice the sins that that Paul lists unrepentantly will get God's justice. But he tells us that there were those who had had mercy.

He says such were some of you. And so right here at Cornerstone, we have people who previously had given their lives over to fornication, and guess what? God has washed them, and now they've begun to follow the Lord. We have people at Cornerstone who had previously lived lives of adultery, but God has washed them through the gospel and they've begun to follow the Lord and repent of sin.

We have people who have been revilers, we have people who have been extortioners. We have obviously people who have been covetous. We have people at Cornerstone who have struggled with homosexual feelings or desires for the opposite sex, who've recognized what the Bible says and they've repented of their sins, and they've changed. As much as our world wants to make fun.

of therapy that can change sexual desires, we've seen it right here at Cornerstone. We've seen people who have come in with unwanted sexual desire for the opposite sex, who say, I wanna follow the Lord, and they have seen the Lord change their lives. All you have to do is go on YouTube. And there are hundreds of testimonies of people who had previously walked in lesbianism, homosexuality, who have been taken over by the gospel and they have repented.

One of my favorite, one of my heroes, in, in this respect is a lady named Kath. Why am I forgetting her name? Senior moment. Catherine Cochran.

Is it Catherine Caun? I'll send you guys the link. I'll post it. I don't, I don't believe all of her doctrine.

Yeah. Did you 55 is a senior. Oh man, getting close. Catherine Catherine Cauran, I'll send you guys the link.

she's actually a really amazing gal. She was the editor of the biggest lesbian magazine in the country. And she was at a, a, a gay and lesbian conference, was walking around one day and just said, what in the world am I doing? She had heard, learned the gospel when she was a child, and it was like the Holy Spirit just fell upon her and she began to be convicted of her sin.

And the very next issue of her magazine were 10 reasons why I've left lesbianism. And her and obviously, everybody dropped her magazine. And, and then her ministry, she just goes around sharing the gospel. with people who struggle with lesbianism, and she shares the gospel with them and gives them hope and, and helps them see how they can, live for Christ.

So just an awesome lady. Right. We worshiped You Right. And the chain reference Revolution.

Right That's good. That's 22:15. So, yeah, Mitch is talking about Revelation 22:15 and sharing the gospel. Right.

They Forgive us. You can't live in the sin and be forgiven, right? That's the whole thing they don't. Confess the sin.

Yeah, confess the sin, have a change of mind, and, and be granted Christ's righteousness, and then, and then go on a newness of life. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, the Revelation 22:15 is, yeah, is another good passage that lists several different sins, that are outside of the, out of the, out of the kingdom. So, let's, let's wrap this up.

We're at 10:01. So as we consider Genesis 19. What we have on display in Genesis 19 is, I believe, narrative, a narrative passage, historical, not gashika. This is not just story.

This is historical stuff that God has preserved for us on the pages of Scripture, so that we would one, learn about God's justice. But also we'd learned about God's mercy, that God had mercy on Lot and his family, as they were interceded for by Abraham in the previous chapter and as they came underneath the Abrahamic covenant. And Lot with all of his wickedness, he had obviously believed, he had believed in the God Yahweh and believed, In, in, in Yahweh's righteousness. And so God comes and even though Lot is not deserving of God's mercy, God sends angels to pull him out.

And when I look at Lot, I don't know about you, but I see myself. I, I can't tell you how many times, I've been heading down a path or, or going down a road where it's just like, why am I here again? Why am I here again? And yet the Lord in His mercy comes and grabs me and pulls me by the hand, and he takes me out.

Of the path of wickedness. I can remember at one point in my twenties, I was driving the 395 down to up to Bishop. And I was at this place again where I was at just, just the, the cycle of sin, and I was really feeling like God's judgment was ready to fall upon me. In fact, I was just waiting for God just to come and crush me under, under his, with his justice.

And when I got up to bishop, I started opening up my Bible, opened up to Matthew 18, and the passage of scripture that came, that really mystery to me is, it wasn't like I was looking for it, but it was, it was the passage about the 99 sheep and the one that went astray and that Jesus Christ went out after that one and threw the sheep on his. There's a lot of things that Jesus could have said to that sheep. He could have said, you filthy, good for nothing sheep, I'm selling you.

Or he could have said, you, you, you stupid sheep, why are you out here again?

But Jesus takes the sheep, he throws it over his shoulder, he takes the sheep back to the flock. And then the part of the scripture that really got to me, whereas it says, it says, and it is not the will of the Father that he should lose one of his little ones. And it was like, it was just like a dart in my, in my heart. That even though I still struggle with sin, that God was telling me, he's not going to lose you.

I'm not gonna lose you. You are my child, you are underneath my covenant. This is a unilateral covenant, not bilateral, and I've put Christ's righteousness on you, you are my child. And that's what keeps, that's part of what keeps me going., and I, I, I see a lot in myself so often, and yet we see the mercy of the Lord.

So it should give us every reason to, to be humbled. We'll, we'll hit other questions next week, some apologetic questions about this chapter and move on, but if you guys have anything you wanna ask me right after class, you can come on up. Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, we thank you so much, for your word.

Thank you for Josiah coming and sharing with us and reminding us, just about the justice and mercy. that you are characterized by, we thank you, Lord, for these chapters, chapter 18 and 19 that you put in your, in your word. It'd be very easy, for the church to look at these chapters and want to be embarrassed by them and, and to look at Lot and want to just symbolize or spiritualize, this text. But what we see is your word as it so consistently is just reporting the facts.

Just reporting the facts and all the gory detail. And when we look at these chapters, we see that yes, human beings have great potential for evil. And we see that even believers in the old covenant, even believers in the new covenant can many times be duped by their own culture. And yet you're in the business of showing mercy to your people who have come up under the covenant, have come under the gospel.

We ask you to continue to have mercy upon us and continue to grant us repentance. And Lord, we thank you that you're in the business of saving sexually immoral people, saving fornicators, adulterers, saving covetous, idolaters, saving homosexuals. Lord, you're in the business of, of washing revilers. saving many sinners.

And so we pray, Lord, that You would save more and more sinners through the ministry here at Cornerstone, through your church at large. And we just thank you for your kindness and goodness to us this day. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.