Genesis 18:16-19:38: Mercy & Judgment

Genesis 18:16-19:38: Mercy & Judgment

We’ve been working our way passage by passage through the book of Genesis, and today the next passage we come to is Genesis 18:16 through 19:38, so I’ll be reading a selection of verses from that passage. It says,

20 Then the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” 22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom….1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” 9 But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. 10 But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 11 And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door. 12 Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. 13 For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” 14 So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. 15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.”… 24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, what a privilege it is to open and study your word. We understand that these words come from your very mouth. They’re God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. So help us, by your Holy Spirit, to be thoroughly equipped for each of those things and ultimately to come to a deeper knowledge, a deeper love, and a deeper relationship with you. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen. 

If you’re like most people, you probably have rooms in your home that you’re relatively comfortable with other people seeing—perhaps a living room, a kitchen, and a guest bathroom. And you usually try to keep these rooms fairly clean or at least tidy them up a bit before guests arrive. But then, of course, there are other rooms that aren’t really designed for guests—like a master bedroom that just tends to be a more personal space or a laundry room that may or may not have some underwear on the floor that accidentally fell out of the hamper. And, in most homes, there’s also that junk room that’s such a wreck and so embarrassing that, whenever guests are over, the door to that room definitely stays closed—and preferably locked, if possible. You feel the need to keep people out of that room at almost any cost. 

And I think that’s similar to the way Christians can sometimes feel about various teachings in the Bible. There are some teachings that we feel very comfortable talking about such as God’s love and his mercy and the way he offers us purpose in life. But then there are other teachings that we often feel a bit awkward talking about and are therefore hesitant to discuss. And God’s wrath—as we see exhibited on Sodom and Gomorrah here in our main passage—is certainly one of those teachings. 

Yet, I’d like to encourage you to remember that every aspect of God’s character is glorious, including the judgment and wrath he pours out in this passage. You know, when you think about it, God’s wrath is simply his goodness in action. It’s God’s devotion to what’s good that leads him to respond to evil the way he does. If God didn’t judge evil, he wouldn’t be worthy of our respect, much less our worship. 

I mean, just think about all of the atrocities that have taken place and continue to take place in this world. Think about all the untold millions of people who have been brutally oppressed and even killed by various evil dictators and regimes. Would a god who implicitly condoned all of that by turning a blind eye to it really be a god you’d want to worship? Would he even be a god you could respect or admire? I don’t think so. In fact, if all of us were honest with ourselves—including those in our society who are openly skeptical about Christianity—I think we’d all have to admit that, deep down, we desire a God who’s devoted to goodness and righteousness. If any other kind of god sat on the throne of the universe, it would be an absolute nightmare for all of us. 

And, just to be clear, who are we anyway to sit in judgment on the God of the universe? C. S. Lewis wrote that “The ancient man approached God…as the accused person approaches his judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock.” The dock, by the way, is the place in a British courtroom where the accused person sits. Lewis then continues, “[Man] is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the Bench and God in the Dock.” Isn’t that crazy? Who do we think we are? What arrogance to think that we have the ability to properly evaluate God’s actions! Listen: an ant is closer to having the moral and intellectual ability to properly evaluate our actions than we are to having the moral and intellectual ability to evaluate God’s actions. So we don’t even have the competence to act as God’s judge, much less the authority. 

So, as we approach this passage of Scripture in Genesis, let me encourage you to do so with the utmost humility. Instead of arrogantly presuming that you’re in some sort of position to act as God’s judge, come to this passage with fear and trembling and a humble desire to learn more about the glorious goodness of our glorious God. 

As we’ll see, the main idea of this passage is that God rescues Lot from the judgment he inflicts on Sodom. Lot, by the way, was the name of Abraham’s nephew. So, again, God rescues Lot from the judgment he inflicts on Sodom.

Now, those of you where were here last week may remember that God’s been interacting with Abraham. And he says to Abraham in verses 20-21, 20 …“Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, 21 I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.” So, God first states that an “outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah” has come up to him. The Hebrew word translated as “outcry” is commonly used in the Old Testament to refer to the cries of anguish that come from the lips of people who are being brutally oppressed. It’s used in Exodus to refer to the Israelite slaves who cry out when oppressed by their Egyptian masters. It’s also used several times in Jeremiah to refer to the people of a city who cry out when their city is attacked and its women raped and its wealth plundered by an invading army. 

So, understand that this “outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah” was coming from within the cities themselves from the lips of people who were in agony over the terrible acts that were being committed against them and the shocking wickedness and violence that was rampant in those cities. Brutal oppression against each other was just a way of life for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.

So don’t think for a moment that the only sin of these cities is that the people there engaged in homosexual behavior. That kind of behavior was undoubtedly wrong and contrary to God’s design, but if you think of the sin of these cities only in sexual terms, you’re missing the real depth of depravity of which they were guilty. No wonder God says here in verse 20 that “their sin is very grave.”

Yet, surprisingly, as we continue working our way through this passage, the first thing we encounter isn’t God’s judgment but rather his mercy. Look at verses 23-28: 23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” 26 And the Lord said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” 27 Abraham answered and said, “Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes. 28 Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”

Abraham then asks about whether God will destroy the city if 40 righteous people are there, and then 30, and then 20, and then 10. And God assures him that, even if just 10 righteous people are found in Sodom, he’ll spare the city. Think about that. He’ll spare an entire city filled to the brim with wicked people if he can find even 10 righteous people within that city. That’s what I call incredible mercy. 

And that’s what we find throughout the Old Testament. God’s natural disposition is one of mercy toward sinners. He’s not looking for an excuse to judge people but rather desires to find a reason to show them mercy. David describes him Psalm 145:8 as “slow to anger.”  He writes, “The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” So understand that when the Bible depicts God’s anger or wrath, we never see even a hint of the deficiencies that are often found our anger and wrath. As J. I. Packer observes, “God’s wrath in the Bible is never the capricious, self-indulgent, irritable, morally ignoble thing that human anger so often is. It is, instead a right and necessary reaction to objective moral evil. God is only angry where anger is called for.”

So, God tells Abraham that, if he can find just 10 righteous people living in Sodom, he’ll mercifully spare the whole city. Yet, as we cross over into chapter 19, we see that God does eventually destroy Sodom—meaning that wickedness was so pervasive in the city that not even 10 righteous people lived there. 

However, even as we read about what happens in the final hours leading up to God pouring out his judgment on Sodom, we still see God showing the mercy and grace that are so central to who he is. Remember, we said that the main idea of this passage is that God rescues Lot from the judgment he inflicts on Sodom. The most amazing thing about this passage isn’t God’s judgment. Judgment is what we should expect for a city like Sodom. Instead, the amazing thing is the incredible grace God shows to a man as clueless and compromised and morally desensitized as Lot is. 

In the first part of verse 1, we read that “The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.” Now, Lot’s position here in the gate indicates that he had come to have a prominent social position in Sodom. In ancient times, the prominent men of a city would often sit in the city gate in order to speak with each other and transact business and oversee the city in general. So, for Lot to be allowed to have a seat at the city gate means that he had achieved a certain level of prestige in Sodom. He was now one of the big dogs. 

And it’s very instructive to observe the progression recorded in Genesis of Lot coming to have this position in Sodom. At first, Genesis 13:12 states that Lot simply “moved his tent as far as Sodom.” In other words, he was merely on the outskirts of the city. Then, in Genesis 14:12, we learn that Lot was “dwelling in Sodom.” So, at some point between those two chapters, he had moved into the city. And now, we read in Genesis 19:1, that Lot wasn’t just living in Sodom but had achieved a prominent status in the city, as indicated by the fact that he was “sitting in [the city] gate.”

And that’s a very accurate illustration of the way in which sin draws you in. You know, our tendency, many times, is to get as close as we can to sin without technically crossing the line. We try to live on the outskirts of the city without technically being within city limits. However, it’s usually not long before our inward fortitude begins to wane and our convictions erode and, before we know it, we find ourselves entering the city. We start indulging in the sin. 

Of course, we usually find a way to justify the sin at first. After all, there are always plenty of ways to justify a sin in a way that sounds convincing in our minds when that’s what we’re trying to do. I think of the famous Christian intellectual Ravi Zacharias and the way he reportedly told at least one of the women he sexually abused that his covert sexual indulgences were God’s reward to him for being such a good servant of God and for doing so much for the cause of Christianity. And I’m sure he really believed that, on a certain level. I think he had convinced himself that that was the case. So, if Ravi Zacharias could justify his sins—as extensive and disturbing as they were—in a way that he found convincing, I have no doubt that you and I are capable of justifying—in our own minds, at least—just about any sin we desire to commit.  

But then, eventually, as things progress further, we don’t even bother justifying the sin to ourselves any longer. We get to a point where we’ve become so desensitized to it that the sin no longer even bothers us. Before we know it, there we are, like Lot, not just living in Sodom but sitting at the city gate. 

Brothers and sisters, be warned that sin will always take you further than you ever thought you’d go and make you pay more than you ever thought you’d pay. It’ll get its hooks into you and destroy you from the inside out. So, contrary to what you might sometimes be tempted to believe, the reality is that you can’t live with one foot in the world and the other in God’s Kingdom. You can’t hold onto a sin and follow Jesus at the same time. As Jesus himself says in Matthew 6:24, “No one can serve two masters.” So, that’s the condition in which we find Lot in Sodom—ensnared in sin and thoroughly compromised. 

Yet, he apparently still has some fear of God, as evidenced by his behavior toward the angels in the second part of verse 1 through verse 3: 1 The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My lords, please turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 

However, that’s when things start to go downhill. Now the angels find out why Lot’s house had a 1-star rating on Airbnb. Look at verses 4-5: 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.” As you might be able to discern from the context, the phrase “know them” is a standard Hebrew euphemism for sexual contact. 

Then, verses 6-8: 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” So…yeah. If you’re shocked by that, you should be. Lot actually offered his daughters to this crowd of lustful and violent men so they could be gang raped. That cowardly act shows us just how much Sodom had gotten into Lot and just how far he had wandered from appropriate moral convictions. Lot wasn’t just in Sodom; Sodom was in Lot. 

We then read in verse 9, But they said, “Stand back!” And they said, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge! Now we will deal worse with you than with them.” Then they pressed hard against the man Lot, and drew near to break the door down. So, can you believe their response to Lot? They say, “This fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge.” In other words, “How dare you judge us? You’re so judgmental.” It kind of sounds like something you might hear today, doesn’t it? It just goes to show that, no matter where you are or what culture you’re living in, people get highly offended when you point out their sin or even when you live in such a way that indirectly brings attention to their sin. And I’ll just say, on that note, that, if you’re going to make it as a Christian in American society as it is right now, you’re going to have to be able to deal with that. You’re going to have to be willing to swim against the current and endure being maligned for the sake of your Christian convictions. 

Thankfully, though, it’s at that point in the story of Genesis 19 that the angels intervene by pulling Lot back inside the house and afflicting the mob with blindness so that they grope around and can’t find the door. Verse 11 says that they “wore themselves out groping for the door.” It’s sort of a grim comedy that shows just how enslaved they were to their own lustful appetites. So, if there was ever any doubt about the accuracy of God’s assessment of Sodom’s wickedness, that doubt is now gone. This was a city that was thoroughly depraved in just about every way imaginable. 

We then read about the angels graciously rescuing Lot even when he was in no position or state of mind to rescue himself. Look at verses 15-17: 15 As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 17 And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” 

So, as you can see, Lot obviously isn’t thinking clearly at all in these verses. Even after the events of the previous night, his heart is still so drawn to Sodom that verse 16 says that “he lingered.” I mean, this guy’s insane! The angels eventually have to seize him and his family by the hands and drag them out of the city. And notice the phrase there in the middle of verse 16: “the Lord being merciful to him.” God rescued Lot not because Lot deserved it or had done something to earn a favor from God or had the ability to assist with the rescue. Instead, it was pure grace. God rescued Lot purely by his grace. 

We then read in verses 24-25, 24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. Yet, as we’ve already read, Lot was delivered from that terrible destruction because of the grace of God. 

And that’s the same way in which God rescues us—by his grace. You see, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah prefigures the eternal judgment that’s coming to everyone who rejects God and rebelliously insists on living life their own way. 2 Peter 2:6 refers to what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah as “an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.” 

In Matthew 13:47-50, Jesus himself describes it in the following way. He says, 47 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind. 48 When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad. 49 So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous 50 and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

In ancient times, fishermen would often employ a method of fishing that involved using a very large net—the kind of net Jesus is talking about in these verses. This net required numerous fishermen to operate and sometimes covered as much as half of a square mile. It would have floatation devices attached to the top of the net and weights attached to the bottom so that the net was vertical and basically formed a wall under the water, from the top of the water to the bottom of the water. It would then be pulled by two boats into a giant circle around an area of water. And, as the net was drawn in, it would basically catch everything—including “fish of every kind,” as Jesus says—as well as weeds and other undesirable things. Then, when the fishermen got everything hauled onto the shore, they’d separate the desirable from the undesirable. And, according to Jesus, that’s a picture of what God’s judgment is like. 

John MacArthur writes, “The dragnet of God’s judgment moves silently through the sea of mankind and draws all men to the shores of eternity for final separation to their ultimate destiny—believers to eternal life and unbelievers to eternal damnation. Men move about within that net as if they were forever free. It may touch them from time to time, as it were, startling them. But they quickly swim away, thinking they have escaped, not realizing they are completely and inescapably encompassed in God’s sovereign plan. The invisible web of God’s judgment encroaches on every human being just as that of the dragnet encroaches on the fish. Most men do not perceive the kingdom, and they do not see God working in the world. They may be briefly moved by the grace of the gospel or frightened by the threat of judgment; but they soon return to their old ways of thinking and living, oblivious to the things of eternity. But when man’s day is over and Christ returns to set up His glorious kingdom, then judgment will come.” Friends, be aware that you can’t escape God’s judgment. God’s net of judgment may move slowly, but the end result is inescapable. God’s judgment is coming on all of us just as surely as it was coming on Sodom and Gomorrah. 

Tragically, though, many people don’t that reality very seriously. They’re a lot like the sons-in-law of Lot in Genesis 19:14. Right after the angels tell Lot what’s going to happen, verse 14 says, “So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, ‘Up! Get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.’ But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.” And that’s exactly the way many people are in our society as well. They think it’s all a joke. Sadly, however, they’re soon shown to be tragically mistaken. 

So, what’s the answer, then? How can we escape from the judgment of God? Well, first of all, the Bible’s very clear that it’s not simply by trying to be a good person, as if we could somehow do enough good things to outweigh the bad things we’ve done. One reason that doesn’t work is because, according to the Bible, it’s actually impossible, apart from God, to do anything that’s truly good. The Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 3:12 that “no one does good, not even one.” We also learn in Isaiah 64:6 that “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Think about that. Even the most supposedly “righteous” things we do are actually nothing more than a “polluted garment” in God’s eyes. And the reason for that, as we learn elsewhere in the Bible, is that they flow out of a heart that’s polluted with sin. So that’s one reason why we can’t escape God’s judgment simply by trying to be a good person. 

Then, another reason is that it’s sin itself—and not merely having too much sin—that separates us from God. Even one sin demands God’s judgment. So, even if we could somehow live the rest of our lives in sinless perfection, that could never make up for the sins we’ve already committed. So, we find ourselves in a situation in which we’re utterly helpless to save ourselves. Trying to live a morally upright life won’t save us from God’s judgment any more than eating right and exercising will save a person who has cancer from the deadly outcome of their cancer. What we need is a cure—and, according to the Bible, that cure is found only in Jesus. Jesus endured God’s judgment in our place when he died on the cross. Although he was fully God, Jesus became a man so that he could act as our substitute on that cross and suffer the consequences for our sin. Basically, God’s judgment was poured out on Jesus so it wouldn’t have to be poured out on us. Then, three days later, Jesus resurrected from the dead so that he now stands ready to save everyone who puts their trust in him. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done or how deeply embedded in Sodom we’ve become. God’s hand is more than able to reach into the very heart of Sodom itself and rescue us from the coming judgment. 

You know, if Genesis 19 shows us anything, it shows us that God’s grace is available for those who don’t deserve it. Just as God, in his mercy, rescued Lot, he offers, in his mercy, to rescue you. But you can’t afford to linger. Let Jesus take you by the hand and rescue you from the judgment that’s coming. Don’t hesitate, don’t try to pack a suitcase first. Instead, drop everything and flee from God’s judgment by putting your full trust and confidence in Jesus for rescue.