The Judgement of Sodom & the Vision of RCC
Download MP3So the men turned from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham stood still before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are 50 righteous within the city, will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fairs the wicked. Far be that from you.
Speaker 1:Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? And the Lord said, if I find it Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Abraham answered and said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I, who am but dust and ashes. Suppose 5 of the 50 righteous or lacking, will you destroy the whole city for lack of 5? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there.
Speaker 1:Speak. Suppose 30 are found there. He answered, I will not do it if I find 30. He said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there.
Speaker 1:He answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak again, but this once. Suppose 10 are found there. But he pressed them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house.
Speaker 1:And he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and they ate. 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 Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after him and said, I beg you my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have 2 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.
Speaker 1: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 them. Then they pressed hard against the man Lot and drew near to break the door down. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door.
Speaker 1:Then the men said to Lot, have you anyone else here? Sons in laws? Sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city? Bring them out of the place. But he seemed to his sons in laws to be justing.
Speaker 1:As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot saying, up, take your wife and your 2 daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. But he lingered. 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.
Speaker 1:And Lott said to them, oh no, my lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight. And you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to and it is a little one.
Speaker 1:Let me escape there. Is it not a little one? And my life will be saved. He said to him, behold, I grant you this favor also that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly for I could do nothing till you arrive there.
Speaker 1:Therefore, the name of the city was called Zohr. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zohr. And all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But Lot's wife behind him looked back and she became a pillar of So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. The word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:Excuse me, God. If you would pray with me. Lord, we pray that you would honor your very words that were read. And even as we heard them, that they would crack open hardened hearts, that truths we heard would penetrate deeply within us, and already begin working change. Lord, we are naturally deaf people when it comes to hearing your words, and so we ask that you would do the supernatural and open up our ears.
Joel Brooks:We're also naturally hardened people in our hearts don't like to receive truth. And so we ask that you would open our hearts to receive your truth. We want to hear from you. So God, I pray that my words now would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. I don't know about you, but I cannot think of a better way to start the new year than to kind of read and preach on Sodom and Gomorrah. It's, it's one of those uplifting inspirational texts that, you know, you always kind of dream about as a as a preacher, inspire you to make New Year's resolutions, be a better person. Actually growing up, I heard this text preached on quite a bit in the church that I was at, or the revivals that I was dragged to.
Joel Brooks:And, usually the pastor would say something like this, you know, the the people of today do things that would make the people of Sodom and Gomorrah blush. And then he would point out the evils. Evils such as listening to ACDC, or evils such as listening to Stripe or heavy heavy metal Christian rock. And I can remember one time even the the person held up a, the preacher held up a poster of striper and ripped it in front of me. And somehow, I was looking at that, I was thinking, you know, after I read what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah, I really don't think they would blush at me listening to ACDC.
Joel Brooks:I actually always walked away thinking, man, in light of this story, I live a pretty good life. I, I live nothing like these people that God destroyed. But here we are in Genesis 18/19, it's, it's where we are as we're walking through this series in Genesis. And so what what do we do with a text like this? A story about fire, destruction, an attempt to gain rape.
Joel Brooks:I mean it's a, it's a horrific text that actually reveals a lot about us. It says a lot about our sins. It says a lot about who we are. And I think it also says a lot about who our church should be for this coming year. Just before Christmas, we we read and looked at the first half of Genesis 18 in which 3 visitors came to Abraham.
Joel Brooks:And they told him, Sarah, your wife is gonna have a child. And Sarah is listening and she laughs to herself. The Lord calls her out on it and says, Sarah, why did you laugh? For some reason, she says, I didn't laugh. So the Lord calls her out on it again.
Joel Brooks:Yes, you did. End of discussion. And after that, the Lord and his, 2 messengers, the 2 angels with him, they left. And that's where this story picks up. They get up and they start heading to the city of Sodom and Abraham is the good host and so he gets up and he walks with them for part of their journey.
Joel Brooks:But as they are walking, the Lord tells Abraham what he's about to do. That he's about to go to Sodom and Gomorrah and judge them. And he thought he should tell Abraham this because after all he has promised Abraham that Abraham will be a blessing to all the nations. So if you're about to wipe out one of the nations, Abraham should probably be in on this. And then something curious happens in verse 22 chapter 18.
Joel Brooks:It says, so the men turned from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Then Abraham drew near and said, will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? The 2 men, they go on to Sodom, and you get the picture of almost Abraham blocking the Lord's path, kinda kinda moving and standing before the Lord. No, no, no, no, no. Not yet.
Joel Brooks:And then he gets really, really bold. I mean he asked out a pointed question. Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? Far be it from you to do that, Lord. And he repeats that, far be it from you, twice.
Joel Brooks:He is he is in a sense in the Lord's face being very bold and direct. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? Parents, how would you treat your child if your child talk to you that way? I would send my child to the room if I didn't spank them first, but God doesn't do this. The Lord listens to Abraham, agrees with Abraham.
Joel Brooks:He's actually pleased with Abraham's request. I think it's actually somewhat humorous that, Abraham, after the Lord answers his first request, you see how he answered, he asked the Lord the second time. You know, first time he doesn't even call the Lord, Lord. He just kind of jumps right in and says, how can you do this? Far be it from you to do this.
Joel Brooks:And I think he's actually amazed he's not dead and that the Lord didn't just say, hey, little Abraham off the planet for talking to me like that. He's he's kind of amazed. And so his second request is this, behold, I've undertaken to speak to the lord, I who am but dust and ashes. You know, he finally gets this, this reverent tone. But he keeps this conversation with the Lord and he keeps interceding on Sodom's behalf.
Joel Brooks:Abraham does not delight in knowing that the wicked are about to be slaughtered. Notice that he's not praying for his nephew. He doesn't say, Hey God, my nephew Lot, he lives there. Save Lot. He doesn't.
Joel Brooks:He's praying for the entire city. Don't wipe out the city. He cares about all the people in the city. Certainly, he cares about Lot, but he cares about all of them. He pleads that God would not destroy them until finally he he gets God to say he won't destroy Sodom if there's just 10 righteous people, only 10.
Joel Brooks:Do you do you pray for your community with such boldness? As Abraham's children, we should pray for our city and our community like this. We then come to chapter 19, which is one of the most horrific chapters in all the Bible. And, here there's the description of Sodom's sin. And it just kind of makes you cringe as as you're reading this.
Joel Brooks:I don't know about you, but I've never seen anything like this in real life. And so there's a temptation for when I read this text to think, okay, this doesn't apply for me. It probably doesn't apply to anybody living in Birmingham, Alabama. Maybe some people who live in Las Vegas, maybe some people on Bourbon Street, you know, maybe some other really horrible places in the US where people just go all out and send, but but not here in Birmingham, Alabama, not here at this church. I don't think that my life in any way resembles these people.
Joel Brooks:I mean, we've got an angry mob of both old and young men. All the men in this entire city trying to beat down Lot's door in order to gang rape his 2 guests. The scene here is just gruesome. It's you cannot get a more wicked, a more heinous scene than this. This This is where our our term, sodomy, comes from.
Joel Brooks:It's a picture of evil that's almost become iconic. Christians and non Christians alike all know about Sodom and Gomorrah. They know about the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. It's it's obvious. It's homosexual sin here.
Joel Brooks:That's why God rained down fire upon the city. But hear these words from Ezekiel 16, about Sodom. And this is, Ezekiel writing to Israel, and he's comparing them and their sins to the sins of Sodom. He says, behold, this was the guilt of your sister, Sodom. She and her daughters had pride, excess of food and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
Joel Brooks:They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them. Let me let me read that again. It says, behold, this was the guilt of your sister, Sodom. She and her sisters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous eves, but did not aid the poor and the needy.
Joel Brooks:They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So we read this and we ask, so what is the great sin of Sodom? It's pride. It's neglect of the poor. It's living a comfortable life.
Joel Brooks:I I tell you, no matter how many times I read that, it still hits home to me. It it still hits home. Sodom and Gomorrah, they're destroyed because they thought they were something. They thought that they were something. I mean, that they were the best nation.
Joel Brooks:They're the best city on earth. Obviously, God or the gods had blessed them because look at their life. They were wealthy. They were comfortable. They had things easy.
Joel Brooks:So obviously, they had God's favor. But no, God sees them as wicked. Look how the Lord Jesus himself describes this judgment of Sodom in Luke 17. Luke 17 28, he says this, likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rain from heaven and destroyed them all.
Joel Brooks:Sexual sins. He doesn't describe homosexual gang rape, and that's why God rained fire down on them. He describes what you would see as a ordinary life. I mean, look at the activities he describes. He doesn't say they were gambling, and they were drinking, and they were cursing, and they were listening to rock music, you know, and they were they were doing all these horrible He doesn't list that.
Joel Brooks:He says they were eating. They were drinking. They were buying. They were selling. They were planting.
Joel Brooks:And what Jesus is warning us here is that what we would consider a ordinary life, just an ordinary life can be a wicked and evil life in his eyes. That our ordinary life could be lived out in total rebellion against him. That we can get up and we can wake up in our homes, and we can eat our breakfast, and we can drive to work, or we can you know, go to Walmart, go shopping. We could do all those things. It could it could be absolutely evil in the Lord's eyes Because we do it out of pride, we do it in neglect of the poor, we do not do those things in glory for him.
Joel Brooks:Ezekiel says that the people of Sodom were haughty. Love that word, haughty. Full of pride. Now, proud people, they think they have a good life because they've earned it. That's how you know if a person is proud.
Joel Brooks:I've got a good life. I am who I am because I have made myself this way. I've worked hard for it. I deserve it. Proud people believe they deserve the car that they drive.
Joel Brooks:They have worked hard for the home that they have. They deserve the job that they have. They they don't think of the grace of God, that God has actually given them those things. They think that they have achieved those things. And so the reality is, when I look at my life, I mean, it's obvious I struggle with pride.
Joel Brooks:I I don't just think at times that I have earned those things. I actually think I deserve better than those things. How many of you, when you look at your life, think I actually deserve a better job, a better promotion, I deserve a better car. I deserve a better La Z Boy chair. I deserve better respect than I'm getting.
Joel Brooks:I deserve better honor from the people around me. We we not only think what we have, we've worked hard and we deserve it, we think we actually deserve more. That's being haughty. That's being proud. The people of Sodom thought the same thing.
Joel Brooks:Ezekiel says, in addition to this, they did not aid the poor. So they would go shopping, they would go to work, they would, you know, build their homes, they'd do whatever without so much as thinking about the poor. They were doing unto themselves. I heard Doctor. Mark Ginolett say this in a message one time.
Joel Brooks:They were doing unto themselves what they should be doing unto others. Many commentators point out that the outcry that the Lord hears is actually the cry of the oppressed and the cry of the poor coming from Sodom. Now, I don't know if this hits home for you, but this hits home for me. And I will confess that I don't like this story anymore now, since I've studied it. Used to just kind of be a fun, fantastic little story, but now I really don't like it.
Joel Brooks:I liked it when I could read it and I could judge others. I liked it when there was a us and a them. I don't like it when it's all about us. When I can't judge Sodom, I can only relate and identify with Sodom. It's uncomfortable for me.
Joel Brooks:I think I need to mention before we we move on in this text, just one one additional thing about our calling to help the poor. In this story, I want you to notice that there are no righteous poor. There are no righteous poor. This is a hard, it is a sobering truth here, but God condemns the people of Sodom for not taking care of the poor, then God destroys the poor. Do you see that there?
Joel Brooks:Says, you did not take care of the poor and the judgment is I'm destroying you and the poor. Because the poor aren't righteous either. The rich and the poor alike are unrighteous. They're all wicked before me. And the reason I feel like I need to point this out is because I know a number of Christians who have this grand illusion about helping the poor.
Joel Brooks:You know, they want to get out there and do good for the poor then And they're picturing, you know, maybe going up somebody on the street, buying them a meal and this, the person they help is so nice, is so kind and so full and thanks them, you know, a 100 times for thank you so much for buying me this meal. I've been praying all day that the Lord will bring somebody
Speaker 3:like you into my life to buy this for me and
Joel Brooks:you've changed my life. And my life to buy this for me, and you've changed my life, and everything's just so wonderful. We kind of expect that. That is not always the case. I don't know about you, but for me that's rarely the case.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes ministering to the poor is hard because they're unrighteous. Sometimes the poor are in a horrible situation because their own sin has placed them there and they're not repentant of it. Sometimes they don't want your help. They don't want to repent. They're not gonna be kind.
Joel Brooks:They will never be grateful. At our office downtown, or I guess I should say, once was our office downtown since we've given that up and are moving, There's a there's a homeless man that comes by fairly often that we try to help. And, he is the rudest man that you could come across. And he always, you know, comes knocking on the door. Hello, my Christian brothers.
Joel Brooks:Open the door for me. And we'll open the door for him. And then he's just rude. What do you got? I I fed him 6 hot dogs just a few days ago and he's still not satisfied.
Joel Brooks:He he gripes and he complains. He's he's rude. He's demeaning to you. And and all the while, you're like, what what I do to deserve this? Last time I bought a meal for somebody downtown, it was a lady.
Joel Brooks:She wanted some money. I said, I don't give you, I'm not gonna give you money, but there's a Chick Fil A right there. Can I buy you some food? And she complained, said, no. I don't want food.
Joel Brooks:I want money because I'm hungry. I'm like, well, I can buy you. Finally, she goes, okay, you can get me something. Make it a combo number 6 diet coke to drink. I said, oh, okay.
Joel Brooks:And so I went in there and I, I, I, I bought her this and I brought it back out and she didn't thank me. She only complained that I brought her the wrong sauce. I mean, you just kinda wanna lash out. I mean, come on, you're supposed to at least be grateful. But helping the poor isn't always like that.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes the poor are unrighteous. But you know what? It is our calling as a church to give to the unrighteous poor, salvation? Do you think when God's grace was being poured on you, you were kind to him, open him up, loving arms? We were in rebellion against God.
Joel Brooks:We were his enemies. Now, he overcame us with his love. That is what we do when we share the gospel and we share our lives and we share our money with the unrighteous poor. We are showing them the gospel and we are reminding ourselves of the gospel. And if it so bothers you to to help somebody who's just gonna squander your money, just give it away or, you know, just be ungrateful, Ask yourself, do you really understand the mercy of God?
Joel Brooks:Have you really experienced his mercy in your life? Because if so, it will overflow to them. Let's get back to the story here. The angels go to Sodom and they find lot sitting at the gate. Don't think of a gate is just like, you know, a gate.
Joel Brooks:It's, it's actually a complex. It's a, it's a long corridor where, government officials would be where, the judges would hang out, the, the city rulers or leaders would be there. And that's where they find Lot because Lot is now a respectable citizen, of Sodom. He's he's even probably someone a leader in the community, which is, you know, far cry from what he was when we saw him in Genesis 13. In Genesis 13, it says that he went, you know, in the Jordan Valley, which was well watered and there happened to be the city Sodom there.
Joel Brooks:And he pitched his tent just on the outskirts of Sodom. He didn't actually go into the city. He was just on the outskirts, but now he's no longer a sojourner. He is in the city, he's a respected citizen, somewhat a leader in the community. Because he knows the community that he lives in, he knows what might happen to these 2 strangers that come, so he begs.
Joel Brooks:He's like, y'all come to my house, it's not safe to be here. Come to my house, come. And he's very persistent. And so they come to his house. He's now living in Sodom.
Joel Brooks:He's got a house no longer the tent, and he prepares for them a feast. When I study a lot, and I thought about just doing a whole message on lot, he's a hard guy to figure out. I mean, he's he's I don't know how to describe him. He's somewhat righteous in that he, you know, he looks after strangers. He shows them hospitality.
Speaker 3:He still believes in the Lord.
Joel Brooks:He still believes in the Lord. He hospitality. He still believes in the Lord. Yet, he has had no righteous impact whatsoever on his community, or his neighbors, or even his family. I guess we could just call that person a Southern Christian.
Joel Brooks:He should have been salt and light in his community, but instead, as Jesus would say, he has lost his saltiness and he is worthless. He is not preserving the people that will rot without him. He's become attached to this new life that he enjoys, so much so that he's forced to leave. Look at chapter 19 verse 15. Says, As morning dawned the angels urged Lot saying, Up!
Joel Brooks:Take your wife and your 2 daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of this city. But he lingered. Hey, Lot. I mean it's the best hellfiredamnation sermon you could get. We are about to rain fire down on this city, Lot.
Joel Brooks:And he's like, he's not convinced. He lingers. So they grab him by the hand. Actually, in Hebrew, you have 3 times they mentioned grabbing by the hand. It's like, Lot, come with us.
Joel Brooks:Like, come with us. No. Grab, pull. Drags him out of the city. It's a great picture of our salvation, actually, that none comes to the father, none come to Jesus and lets the father draws or drags them in his mercy.
Joel Brooks:It's a picture of the mercy of God and it's a picture
Speaker 3:of the stupidity and sinfulness of man.
Joel Brooks:And it's a picture of the stupidity and sinfulness of man. Lot is lingering and he wants to hold on to what is about to burn. And he's not going to embrace what's eternal. I'm sure you all can't relate to that. One of the things I kept coming to as I was reading this is the realization that all was required was 10 righteous people to preserve the city.
Joel Brooks:Just 10 righteous people. I mean, Lot didn't even do, I mean, he had Lot, he had his wife, he had his 2 daughters, he had their 2 sons there. I mean, he had 6 at least that should have been righteous, but he had zero impact. All you needed was 10 people giving themselves to the poor, 10 people who cared about justice, 10 people who realized that everything they had in this life was a gift of God's grace. All they needed was a church of 10 to preserve the city.
Joel Brooks:They didn't need, you know, some mega church with tons of money to make a difference or an impact, they need to attend righteous to preserve the city. Like Abraham and Lot, we have been told that judgment is coming. We know there is a judgment day. So how are we gonna live our lives in light of that? Are we gonna be salt and light, in a dark and decaying world?
Joel Brooks:Are we just gonna get comfortable? One of my prayers for this church, for this new year is that we would not just go about life. We wouldn't just eat, drink, work. Do all those things without thinking about the poor, thinking about justice, thinking about doing all those things to the glory of God. That we would see that what he has given us, he's given us those things so we can give them to those who are in need.
Joel Brooks:That he has provided for those who are in need by giving to us. Pray that would happen in 2011. I could end the message here, but I'm not because it would lead you terribly astray. Because you'll think, okay, all right, What you're saying is, you know, 2011, we need to make our new year's resolutions. We need to become better people, more humble people, more giving people, got it.
Joel Brooks:This is gonna work. And like most of your new year's resolutions, it's going to fail in about 1 month or less because you will not have the power to do it. And that's not the main point of this story. If you start pursuing justice, if you start helping the oppressed, and you do those things only so that God won't smite you, you've completely missed the point of this church. You've missed who missed the point of this text and who we are as a church.
Joel Brooks:Because the main point of this text shows us that none are righteous and none can stand before him, and all of us are condemned, and it's only by the mercy of God that we are saved. And this text actually points us forward to the one who saves us. I want us to revisit real quickly 2 texts that we looked at when we were going through Luke. Go to Luke 9 Luke 12. Luke 9 and Luke 12.
Joel Brooks:Luke 9 verse 51. Jesus sent messengers ahead of him to a village or a city. Somewhat sounds familiar. They rejected him. And verse 54 says, and when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?
Joel Brooks:They know the story, they know how this is supposed to go. You know, you're you're sent into a city, they reject you. Yeah, we've seen this before. This is when the fire comes down, you know. Elijah sent fire down, Sodom and Gomorrah, fire came down.
Joel Brooks:Lord, we've grown in our faith. Do you want us to ask that fire comes down? Verse 55 says, Jesus turned and rebuked them. Interesting. So they went to another village.
Joel Brooks:Then we come to chapter 12 verse 49. Which Jesus says this, he goes, I came to cast fire on the earth and would that it were already kindled, To which the disciples are scratching their heads going, okay, I don't get it. Just just a little while ago, we were about to call fire down, cast it down on the earth, and you rebuked us. But now you're saying, I have come to cast fire on the earth and I wish it already was ablaze. Well, Jesus, we could have made it ablaze, but you rebuked us.
Joel Brooks:What's going on here? We could have had another Sodom and Gomorrah, but you rebuked us and stopped us. And then Jesus clarifies in verse 50. Says, I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished. This baptism that Jesus is talking about is his death.
Joel Brooks:It is enduring the wrath of God on the cross. He says, So yes, these cities have sinned. Yes, all these people have sinned. Yes, they deserve judgment. Judgment needs to come.
Joel Brooks:There needs to be another worldwide Sodom and Gomorrah. There needs to be that. And I have come to cast fire on the earth. And I wish it were already a kindled, but I'm gonna have to wait because it is coming on me, on the cross. I am going to endure the judgment day that should be for everyone.
Joel Brooks:Jesus takes on the curse in order to give us the blessing. He takes on the wrath and the punishment. And so we don't go out and try to become better people and try to do good and all that in order to earn salvation because we will fail because we're unrighteous. But what we do is we look at Jesus, who even though we deserve to be punished just like the people of Sodom, but for all of eternity, Jesus took that wrath for us. And that when we look at our money, we're like, I'll let her that love.
Joel Brooks:Who cares about money? We can let it go. Jesus, you say that we can we can actually serve you and worship you by by giving to the poor. I'd love to do that, to give to them in light of all you've given me. And our hearts are changed.
Joel Brooks:That's the fuel that we need for this year, to be the people that God has called us to be. Not a new year's resolution, but our hearts fixed on the gospel, the transforming power of the gospel. Pray with me. Lord, we can never dig down into the depths of your word. We can never reach the end of it.
Joel Brooks:There is always more, and you are always faithful to teach us. I pray now that your Spirit, he would come, he would take whatever is not true, whatever is of error, and he would just wipe it away. Lord, what's a view? God work it in us, change us, transform us. Don't let us put off tomorrow what you were calling for us to do today.
Joel Brooks:May we respond to you now? I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
