Genesis 18:22–19

0:00 You know, I think most of the time in our lives we have a sense that the principle of cause and effect is pretty strong. That what we do in our lives at various points will pretty inevitably lead to certain effects, right? If I get an education, then I will get a job. If I get a job, I will get money. If I get money, then this will happen and that will happen and that will happen. If I'm a good person, I'll find a spouse. And if I find a spouse, then I'll have kids. And if I have kids, then this will happen, and that will happen, and that will happen.

0:31 You have a pretty strong sense of cause and effect, that if we just make the right choices, and if we have good plans, and we execute on those plans, then, you know, sort of like the cogs in a machine, all the teeth will sort of grab, and everything will work in its machine-like way in this life. And I think for most of the years of our lives, certainly for most of the days of our lives, that's a pretty good assumption. I think it generally works that way. You get good plans, you make good decisions, good things generally happen. That's kind of the book of Proverbs, right?

1:03 But I think also, pretty much in every generation, there are a few days and a few events that kind of sweep that conceit away. There are days that pull the curtain back and remind us that actually all of us are pretty much just swimming as best we can in the river of history. And sometimes history speeds up to the degree that we find ourselves caught in the rapids and we realize, oh, I'm not actually in control of any of this. Things happen, and all of a sudden, all of my choices are kind of off the table.

1:37 Things happen, and all of a sudden, all the teeth grind off the gears of my plans, and everything kind of goes haywire, and all of a sudden, I'm not really in control of anything. There are days like that, and months like that, and years like that in our lives. I think every generation has experienced that. I mean, if you're a Gen Z-er, you know, I don't know exactly what that day is for you. I think for a lot of Gen Z-ers, the assassination of Charlie Kirk on that particular October day was one of those days when a lot of people kind of realized, oh my goodness, this world is a kind of out-of-control place.

2:10 And over a lot of Gen X-ers and millennials, it was September the 11th, 2001, when by noon on that day, the curtain was kind of pulled back, and a whole lot of us that are about my age and a little bit older realized, oh my, oh my goodness, I'm not in control of of anything because at any given moment, right, I could be doing everything right. I could get my education and I could find a job and I could be, you know, in the top floor of one of the richest companies in the world on top of the World Trade Center and I could just die. Just like that. Be snuffed out for no particular reason. And when the books are written about history, I'm just one more cog in the machine that drops to the bottom. I think if you're a little bit older, it was the cold war right it was just one of those not just a day or a month it was it was years when you're going about your elementary school education and all of a sudden you have to do a nuclear bomb drill because at any random moment you might be wiped off the face of the planet by a random nuke ducking cover under your little desk as if that's going to do any good

3:14 i remember talking to my grandfathers about their experience in world war ii and just having this sense that oh my goodness it's like you're an 18 19 20 year old kid you're just going about your your job or your your work or your schooling or whatever it was in the 1940s right you go to high school or you're doing your job or you're working out in the field and then bam four months later you're in a bomber over germany getting shot at how did this happen and you realize wow we're we're not really in control of anything when you get right down to it there are things that happen there are days that come along that remind us that we are all ultimately just swept up in history well i think the story that we're going to look at in genesis is kind of one of those stories when the camera pans out from sort of one person and one person's problems and one family's difficulties and questions and the camera pans out and zooms out to show us that actually this

4:16 one man is really just swept up in a much larger story that's going to continue for thousands of years. That's what we're going to be looking at in Genesis today. We are back to this series that we've been in for some time in the book of Genesis. So let me invite you to take a Bible and turn over to Genesis chapter 18. We're going to be looking at about half of 18 and all of 19. You're going to be super helped if you're new to this church thing or new to Third Avenue even. You're going to be super helped by having a Bible in front of you. If you'll look in the pews in front of you, you'll find Bibles that look like this. That's what I'm using. And if you're not familiar with it, if you just open it right to the very beginning, to page 12, you're going to find Genesis chapter 18. And then if you look over at page 13, right up near the top left, you're going to see a little number 16 there. That's where we're going to be starting today. We're going to start it at verse 16, and then we're going to read the whole story all the way down through 18, all the way through 19, and then we're just going to talk about it. And at various times, I'm going to be referring you back to this text and back to this story. So if

5:19 I say something like, you know, look at chapter 18, verse 27, you can kind of go down in there and find it, and you'll be able to see what we're doing. If you're not looking at the Bible, you're going to be a little bit lost. I'm not going to lie to you. This is not the kind of thing where you can just kind of sit there and let it wash over you. You're going to get bored. You're going to get lost. I don't apologize for that. I'm just going to say, hey, were you looking at your Bible if you were bored? And you're going to say no. And I'm going to say, I told you so. So grab a Bible, Open it up to Genesis 18, and I promise this will go a whole lot better for you and me both. So we're looking and have been looking for the last six chapters or so at the life of a man named Abraham.

5:51 He's just this random pagan from the region of Babylon that God basically just plucked out of pagan world, picked him up, looked at him, made some spectacular promises to him, and then sent him on his way into what would come to be known as the promised land because God promised that Abraham's descendants would be given this land that he's kind of wandering around in and sojourning in. Well, the story since chapter 12 has really been a story of extremely, almost like a wooden roller coaster, right?

6:24 It's extremely jerky back and forth, these massive ups and downs in Abraham's faith. I mean, there are times when he's kind of doing everything right. You know, he's attacking the kings in the faith of God. rescue his nephew Lot who's been taken prisoner he's trusting the Lord and he's not going to take the spoils of war because God's going to make him rich and give him blessing he does stuff like that but then he also gets convinced by his wife to commit adultery because he doesn't believe God's promise that he's going to have a son so he decides to take matters into his own hands and try to get the job done on his own it's just massive ups and downs in a few places the the promises of God are put in grave danger by Abraham's unbelief and disobedience to God. Well, over the course of this story of Abraham's life, all the ups and downs, over the course of it, we've basically been tracing one of the major storylines of Genesis, which is God, if you remember from about a month and a half ago, it was the last time we were in Genesis. But if you remember, God's been basically taking

7:24 these promises and then locking them down more and more, right? So they start out as just kind bear promises. I promise Abraham that I'm going to do these things for you. A couple of chapters later, he turns those promises into a locked down covenant, right? Not only do I promise this, but I swear to you in covenant that I'm going to do these things. And then a couple of chapters later, in 17, he locks it down even further by putting a seal on it. Circumcision, which was, you know, this is what you do with a covenant, right? You write it out. You put all the terms of the covenant in there. I make these promises to you. I make these promises to you. And then you take a wax seal right like you've seen it you're you all are doing Christmas cards and some of you have these little wax seals on your cards I've seen them and you take your little metal thing and you stick it into the wax and it makes a seal right well that's kind of what circumcision is it's taking this covenant with these promises and it's God putting his seal on the whole thing in a very particular way right he's sealing that covenant and saying this is locked down a little bit later on in the story he's going to do one more step but we'll get there in a couple of weeks

8:28 So that's what's been going on. But central to all of these promises being kept is that Abraham has got to have a son. He's got to have a son or none of it's going to happen. Because God has said, Abraham, I'm going to make out of you a great nation. Kings are going to come from you. Your descendants are going to be greater than the sand of the seashore. Which cannot happen if Abraham doesn't have a kid. He's got to have a son.

9:01 And yet that's a problem. Well, why is that a problem? It's a problem because Abraham, by this point in the story, is super old. I mean, he's not just old. He is old, old. Like there is just no way. I mean, it's just almost unthinkable. I guess it's not quite impossible. But it's unthinkable that he and his old, old wife Sarah are going to have a son. It's just highly unlikely, and yet that's what God promised them. And the last time we were in Genesis, in chapter 18, we saw God come to Abraham and Sarah in the form of these three men.

9:38 We'll talk about them a little bit more later, but he comes to them in the form of these three men in chapter 18, and he says to them, I promise you, again, I'm going to give you a son. Well, today, as we start in Genesis chapter 18, 16, you've got that massive sort of cliffhanger just hanging there, right? God says, I'm going to give you a son so that I can keep all these great promises that are now sworn with an oath in a covenant. You're going to have a son, and they laugh at him. They laugh at him in the promise that he's made, and you've got this massive cliffhanger.

10:14 what's going to happen now, and the story just pauses. It just stops for like two and a half chapters as we look at other stuff going on in the world. The focus widens for a few chapters from God's dealings with this one man, Abraham and his family, to really his rule over the whole world. But as we read it here in just a second, I want you to recognize that there's more to it than that. Because even as we see these grand themes of God's justice and his judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah and all kinds of stuff that we're going to talk about, we also start to see exactly how God intends to deal not just with this one family, but with all of humanity. The principles that are going to make up the gospel of Jesus Christ over the course of the rest of the story start to be put into place right here.

11:11 It's a famous story that we're reading, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and there's a whole lot to see and learn. But first, let's read it. Look with me at Genesis chapter 18, verse 16. So the men set out, these are the three men that came to visit, one of which is God, two of which are angels. Keep that in mind, it'll be less confusing. So think about three men, the one in the middle is God, two on the sides are angels. They're like representatives of God. So those three men set out from there, from Abraham's home, and they looked down towards Sodom. Abraham went with them to set them on their way.

11:43 The Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him. Then the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave, 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.

12:15 So 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 fare as the wicked do. Far be that from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just? And the Lord said, If I find at Sodom 50 righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.

12:50 Abraham answered and said, Behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I, who am but dust and ashes. Suppose five of the 50 righteous are lacking. Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it if I find 45 there. Again, he spoke to him and said, suppose 40 are found there. He answered, for the sake of 40, I will not do it. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak. Suppose 30 are found there. And he answered, I will not do it if I find 30 there. He said, behold, I have undertaken to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 are found there.

13:21 He answered, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. Then he said, oh, let not the Lord be angry and I will speak again. But this once, suppose 10 are found there. He answered, for the sake of tin, I will not destroy it. And the Lord went his way when he had finished speaking to Abraham. And Abraham returned to his place. 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 and said, My Lord, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet.

13:53 Then you may rise up early and go on your way. They said, No, we will spend the night in the town square. 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. 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. And they called to Lot, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Lot went out to the men at the entrance, shut the door after them, and said, I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man.

14:24 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. 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. But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. 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. Then the men said to Lot, Have you anyone else here, sons-in-law, sons, daughters, anyone you have in the city, Bring them out of the place, 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.

15:06 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. As morning dawned, the angels urged him, saying, Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. 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. 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.

15:37 And Lot said to him, oh no, my Lord, behold, your servant has found favor in your sight. And you've shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I can't escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to. And it's a little one. 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 can do nothing until you arrive there. Therefore the name of the city was called Zawar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zawar.

16:09 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities and all the valley 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 salt. Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley. And he looked and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace. So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham.

16:41 And sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived. Now Lot went up out of Zoar and lived in the hills with his two daughters. For he was afraid to live in Zoar. So he lived in a cave with his two daughters. And the firstborn said to the younger our father is old And there's not a man on earth to come into us after the manner of all the earth come Let us make our father drink wine and we will lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father So they made their father drink wine that night and the firstborn went in and lay with her father He didn't know when she lay down or when she arose The next day the firstborn said to the younger behold I lay last night with my father Let us make him drink wine tonight also Then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve offspring from our father So they made their father drink wine that night also And the younger arose and lay with him, and he didn't know when she lay down or when she arose.

17:28 Thus, both the daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab. He's the father of the Moabites to this day. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ami, and he is the father of the Ammonites to this day. Oh, my goodness. What is up with that story? There is so much going on there. There are so many things that just make you go, what in the world is happening here?

18:01 It's a dramatic story. And there's been a lot of controversy about it over the years. What does this mean? What's going on? How does this push the story forward of the Bible? All of it. We're going to talk about all of that. But before we get to it, it's worth asking, why is it here? Now, why is this story, this wild story? I mean, it is the wildest story in the Bible so far, right? And you've got the flood and lots of things that have happened in the Bible. This is by far the wildest story we've come across in the Bible so far. And you've got to ask, why is it here? When you've got this cliffhanger of a story about the promise of a son, and they've disbelieved, and now is God going to keep the promise of the son?

18:37 And then the action just stops to tell us this story about the destruction of these two cities in the plain. Why is that? Well, it's because in this symphony that's beginning in the book of Genesis, right, the Bible is kind of like that. It's an epic story. You can think of it as a symphony. It's got all these different themes that run through it. Well, right here, you've got a couple of themes that are beginning here in the book of Genesis that are going to swell over the course of the storyline of the Bible until they become massive, beautiful themes by the end of the whole story.

19:11 The theme that's starting here is one that's focused not just on the events of Abraham's life, It's not just what's going on with him, but on exactly how God is going to save the world through him. And you remember that one of the great promises that God made is through you, Abraham, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed. Well, here you start to get a glimpse of exactly how that's going to happen. So here, just to kind of cut to the chase, what we see is Abraham acting in the way that ultimately the Savior of the world who was going to come from him will act.

19:48 Abraham is acting for Lot and for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah like Jesus acts for you, believer. We also see God saving Lot out of this destruction according to the principles by which he saves all of us. Not because of anything righteous in Lot, my goodness, no. He saves him out of his own sheer mercy and grace. So the main idea of the sermon today is pretty simple.

20:20 Our only hope, all of us, you, me, everybody, our only hope is not at all in who we are or what we have done or not done. It is solely in God's chosen mediator for us. Not in anything we've done, not in anything that we are or that we haven't done or that we've avoided. It's solely our hope of salvation. On the last day, when the last trumpet sounds, our hope of salvation is only in God's chosen mediator.

20:53 Now, mediator is one of those 50-cent theological words, and we're going to talk about it more later. But underline it if you've written it down, because it's critical in understanding this story. Our hope is God's chosen mediator. Now, structurally, I think you can see this pretty easily. The simplest way to think about it is that it breaks into two big chunks. So you've got the last sort of half of chapter 18. That's the first chunk, Abraham's conversation, really negotiation with God about Sodom. And then second chunk, the whole of chapter 19, the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. So two points to the sermon corresponding to those two parts.

21:25 Number one, a chosen mediator. We're going to talk about Abraham's role as mediator here, just like Jesus. And then second, a compromised believer. Question mark? That's really the point. You need to put the question mark on it. A compromised believer? Because it's a question about exactly what Lot's status is. But I'm going to try to give you an answer to that. But first of all, a chosen mediator. So when we left off last time in the middle of 18, Abraham had been visited by these three men who promised him that he was going to have a son.

22:00 You pay careful attention to the details. There's no one place where it becomes just like crystal clear in one verse. But you pay attention to the details of the story. And what you see is that those three men are actually God himself, right, kind of in the middle. And then these two angels that act as representatives or ambassadors of God. Now, seems like an odd setup at first, right? I mean, why doesn't God do something, you know, less weird? You know, why show up, you know, kind of in the form of these three men? Sometimes Abraham talks to all three of them. Other times he just talks to, you know, the central one.

22:30 But it's a little bit of an odd setup. But by the middle of chapter 18, where we pick up today, I think it becomes clearer why God appears like this. So look at 18, 16. Chapter 18, verse 16. Then the men set out from there, and they looked down towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. So it becomes clear why God has done this, why he's brought these representatives. The men, as they're leaving Abraham's house, they just turn their heads and they look down the valley toward the city of Sodom.

23:07 Now, what's that doing? When their eyes cut toward Sodom, what's that supposed to do in you as a reader? It's supposed to turn your mind to Sodom. You're supposed to realize, oh, this story is about to turn to Sodom. And them looking in that direction, it seems a little ominous, right? It seems a little bit ominous. Now, for most of us, the mention of Sodom here, it rings all kinds of alarm bells in our minds, right? Because we know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

23:38 It shows up several times in the Bible. Jesus talks about it. Paul talks about it. Peter talks about it. It's talked about all over the place. And we know what happens to Sodom and Gomorrah. So when the angels look at Sodom, we're thinking, well, this is rough, right? If you're reading Genesis for the very first time, though, those alarm bells are not so loud. Because you haven't heard, so far in the story of Genesis, very much about Sodom at all. In fact, there's really just one detail that matters. This is a few chapters earlier. It's like chapter 14, I believe.

24:09 There's kind of a shadow of Sodom in your memory, but not very much. The only shadow you've got is that some years earlier, Abraham's nephew, this guy named Lot, decided to go live near Sodom because the land was more fertile down there in the plain. So he looks at the high land, he looks at the low land, he says, I'm choosing the low land even though this city of Sodom is there. Now, we haven't heard much else from Lot. He gets kidnapped at one point, Abraham has to go save him from these five kings, but he doesn't really have much action in the story.

24:43 You don't hear anything about him. But the three men, then turning their faces to Sodom, Where you remember is the living place of Lot is at least interesting, if not just a little bit ominous. What's about to happen? Well, from that point, after they look down over the plain in the verses 17 to 21, you get this fascinating little internal dialogue of God talking to himself and basically deciding to reveal his plans to Abraham. But I don't want you to miss the point on this.

25:16 The point is not that God is deliberating with himself. And you can read the story like that. It's like, wow, God just really seems not very self-assured here, right? He is not convinced at all in his own mind that he should share his plans with Abraham. And man, I can relate. I am so glad that God is as indecisive as me. Well, that's not the point, and that's not what's going on at all. It's not as if God is unsure what to do. The point in showing us this internal dialogue that's going on in the mind of God is to underscore for us, not for himself, But for you, the reader, it's underscoring why God is going to tell Abraham his plans.

25:57 It's not a whim. It's not just, I happen to be with this guy. Let me share some things with him. It's not that he's trying to be personable and build a relationship with Abraham. That's not what's going on. There is a particular reason that God is going to tell Abraham his plans. And the reason rests on that phrase at the beginning of verse 19. Look at it. Look at the very first phrase of verse 19. I have chosen him. That's why he tells him his plans. He's chosen him.

26:30 Now, it hasn't been put quite that straightforwardly yet in Genesis, but there it is, right? Out of all the peoples in the world, I chose Abraham. And in the choosing, I put myself in covenant with him. In other words, I took our relationship together and I locked it down into a covenant between me and him. And therefore, because I'm in covenant with him, I'm going to reveal myself and my plans to him. You can see that in 17.

27:01 Now that I'm in covenant with Abraham, right, I've chosen him, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? And then he kind of reiterates the promise. Here's what I've promised to Abraham. I've chosen him. I'm going to fulfill my promises to him, and therefore, no, I'm not going to hide what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell him. Now that he's in covenant with me, God says, I'm going to tell him things. I'm going to reveal things to him about my character, God says, and my plans. Now, what's interesting about this is that several times over the course of the New Testament, Abraham, not quite uniquely, but rarely, like it's a very rare thing in the Bible, But Abraham is called the friend of God.

27:46 The friend of God. And as you start to study the idea of friendship in the Bible, one of the things that comes up when someone is a friend of someone else is that the friend reveals himself to his friend. If you're a friend, then your friend will reveal himself to you, tell you about himself. let you get to know him. There's another place in the Bible where these ideas of being chosen and friendship and not hiding things from your friend who's in covenant with you comes back up.

28:24 It's in John 15 where Jesus says this, no longer do I call you servants. He's talking to his disciples. No longer do I call you servants for the servant doesn't know what his master's doing. But I, I have called you friends because all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. You didn't choose me. I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. You see those ideas coming together there? To be called a friend of God is to be in covenant with that God. And to be in covenant with that God means that everything gets revealed to you about who that God is.

29:00 It's incredible. It's incredible that God has done this for Abraham. He's chosen him out of all the people of the world. just plucked him right out of paganism and said, you know what? You, you are going to be my little friend. I'm going to put myself in covenant with you, and I'm going to tell you all about myself. And I'm not going to do that for a whole lot of people throughout the whole rest of the Bible. But you get it. I'm going to be, you're going to be, he says, my friend. And here's what I want you to see.

29:31 It's not because Abraham has been this paragon of virtue. It's just not. You can read this story a hundred times, and if you're honest, you're never going to come to the conclusion, well, the reason God made Abraham his friend was because he was such a good person. You're never going to come to that conclusion if you're honest. What you're going to come to is, wow, this Abraham guy is at best a mixed bag when it comes to virtue and when it comes to morality, and yet God makes him his friend anyway. It's incredible.

30:03 And you know what's even more amazing? Do you know what's even more incredible? that even though friends of God are an exceedingly rare thing in the Old Testament. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, then the king has made you his friend. The king has made you his friend. And it's not because you are a paragon of virtue either.

30:36 You are at best a mixed bag when it comes to virtue and morality. And yet, and yet, God has made you his friend. That, brothers and sisters, is just an incredibly comforting thing to me. And I hope it is to you, too. It's an incredibly comforting thing that God would love Abraham. That he would be unrelentingly faithful to Abraham, even through this wavering faith, this wavering, broken obedience. And it's an incredible thing that now Jesus would love me.

31:08 That he would be unrelentingly faithful to me and call me his friend. Even through my wavering faith and broken obedience. Brothers and sisters, you need to learn that about your Savior. You need to learn that your Savior is not reluctant in his love for you. He's not forced into it. He loves you because he loves you. God wasn't reluctant in his love for Abraham and Jesus isn't reluctant in his love for you.

31:40 You can take that to the spiritual bank and live in light of it. When you waver in your obedience, when you sin against God, don't let that spin you into despair as if God is going to all of a sudden drop kick you out of the throne room. It's not going to happen because you're his friend in covenant with him. Unbreakable covenant. Don't let it spin you into despair when you sin. And instead, let your eyes look up from the dirt that Satan has kicked you down into. Let your eyes lift up again to God who loves you, who has chosen you, who calls you his friend and has put himself in covenant with you.

32:19 Does that sound too easy to you? Does it sound too easy? I mean, we Christians love to talk about brokenness, right? And when I sin, man, I need to spend a few days in just broken, wallowing. Oh, God, I need to be broken before you for days or weeks. No, Christian, you don't. No, you don't. You know what you need to do when you find your nose in the dirt? You need to look up to the God who loves you and is in covenant with you, find forgiveness, and get on with it. Go, live, tell people about the forgiveness that you've found.

32:55 Love your wife, love your husband, love your kids, love your co-workers and your fellow students. Go love people. Don't wallow around in a brokenness that Jesus died to save you from. He was broken, so you wouldn't be. He was crushed, so you wouldn't be. Through his stripes, you are healed. And that's a glorious thing. In 2021, let's keep going. In 2021, God gets to the point of this sort of internal dialogue.

33:29 Yep, I'm going to reveal to Abraham what I'm going to do because he's mine. I've made him my friend, pulled him into covenant with me. I'm going to reveal what I'm going to do. And what he's going to do, 20 and 21, is go see for himself. So it turns out that he's going to send these representative ambassador angels down. And he's going to see for himself the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah. And then he's going to judge them for it. That's what he says. Now, in 20 and 21, don't get tripped up by the language there. People will sometimes, for whatever reason, there are lots of places like this in the Bible. But for some reason, this is one that sort of draws attention.

34:00 I don't know if it's because it's put so sharply or what goes on. But people's attention is drawn to it, and they get really tripped up by it. Wait, doesn't God already know everything? Why does he need to go see if Sodom and Gomorrah are really as bad as the outcry would say? Why does God need to do that if he's omniscient? And for that matter, if he's omnipresent, which we learn from other places in the Bible, why does he need to go down to see? Isn't he already present there? Well, don't get confused by that.

34:31 Don't get confused by that. God, in the story of the Bible, often does things not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of those watching and learning from him. And the point here, as elsewhere, is to make it crystal clear, not to himself, but to Abraham, that God's judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah is entirely deserved. It's entirely just. There's no doubt about it. God is executing this judgment based on meticulous justice. So he's going down and looking closely to sort of make sure he's helping to teach Abraham that lesson.

35:06 Another part of that lesson happens in this next section through the rest of chapter 18. It's a fascinating story. We read it. We're not going to read it again. But basically, Abraham bargains with God, right? Oh, God, what if you find 50 righteous people in that city? What if there are 50 righteous people? Will you sweep away the whole city and take the 50 with him? Now keep in mind, Abraham is learning about God here. He didn't have the Bible. He doesn't have Christian worship songs. He doesn't know God. So he's sort of feeling him out. Like what kind of God is this?

35:39 Like even if most of the city of Sodom is unrighteous, is this the kind of God that would destroy 50 righteous people just to get rid of the bad people? Is that the kind of God I'm dealing with here? Or is this a different God? And so he's feeling him out. He's getting deeper and deeper and deeper into the character of God as God reveals himself to Abraham step by step by step. So he says, what about 50? And God says, okay, I won't destroy it if there are 45, 40, 30, 20. And each time, God says, for that many, I will reserve judgment.

36:10 For that many, I will reserve judgment. For that many, I will reserve judgment. Right? And so he gets all the way down to 10. We don't exactly know why he stops at 10. People say, well, why didn't he go to 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1? Right? Well, who knows? God walks away. That's one reason, right? He just kind of gets tired of it. There in 33, like the conversation's over. The Lord walks away. But also, various guesses have been made. I don't know. I think the best one is that the point has been made, right? And we've been going in basically 10 increments, you know, increments of 10.

36:42 And so the next one would be zero. And that would be silly to ask, oh, God, if there are zero righteous people, will you still, that's silly. So the story just ends. Another guess has been that 10, it loosely seems to be sort of the unit of an extended family, right? So you got like husband, wife, four kids, and their spouses. But it's basically the smallest, loosely a unit of a family. So Abraham might be asking, Lord, what if there's just one family in the whole city that is righteous? Will you sweep them away? And what he's learning is that God is meticulous in judgment, right?

37:16 He doesn't sweep away the righteous with the wicked. He's meticulous in his judgments. Now, in this whole story of the bargaining of Abraham with God, there are a couple of things happening. One thing is that Abraham is learning even more deeply that God is exacting in his judgments, right? He doesn't act in uncontrolled anger. He discriminates precisely between the righteous and the wicked, which is really important for us, and we tend to take it for granted. We tend to take it for granted, right?

37:48 we tend to take it for granted that if my relationship individually with God is good, then I am good, and I'm not going to be swept away with the whole rotten mass of humanity. But Abraham didn't know that. He's learning it. God doesn't act in uncontrolled anger. He discriminates precisely between the righteous and the wicked. Second, though, and most importantly, do you notice here that Abraham is acting in the covenant role of mediator? between God and Sodom.

38:22 He's acting as a mediator, as one who mediates or stands between God and human beings. Now, it's worth pausing here for just a second because this idea of mediation is fundamental to the story of the Bible. It's this theme that's just beginning, right? It's just starting, and yet it's going to swell into one of the most important themes in the entire symphony of the Bible. We as human beings need someone to stand between us and God. To speak for us to God and for God to us.

38:55 We need a mediator. Because without a mediator, we're sunk. You do not just strut into the presence of the living God and expect it to go well with your sinful self. You need someone standing between you and him or you're toast in the presence of a righteous God. And so throughout the Bible, God is at pains to teach that truth to his people. So Moses acts as a mediator between God and Israel.

39:28 The priests act as mediators between God and Israel. The kings of Israel act as mediators between God and the people. They stand, all of those people stand as mediators or representatives between God and the people. Praying for them, pleading for them, making sacrifices on their behalf. Sometimes, in the case of the king, even taking the people's punishment on himself. And the great crescendo of that whole theme is the Bible's message. That in the end, the theme of mankind needing a mediator comes down to what Paul says in 1 Timothy 2.

40:04 There is one God and one mediator between God and men. The man Jesus Christ. Friend, if you want to understand the gospel, if you're a Christian, how you're saved. If you're not a Christian, how you can be saved. This idea of mediation is critical. You need a mediator between you and God. Otherwise, you're toast because of your sin and rebellion against him. And yet, Jesus stands as the one who can be a mediator between you and God. Take the punishment that you deserve.

40:36 Live the life that can be presented in your place. He stands there as your representative, substitute, champion, king, mediator. And what you need to do is go step behind him, friend. You know that's what faith is, right? It's just saying, God, I can't take that wrath. I can't do it for myself. He's already done it, though, so I'm going to stand right there, right behind him. You lean on him. You rely on him. You say, Jesus, I can't save myself, but I know that you can save me. And now I'm following you for the rest of my life.

41:08 Mediation is critical. You need one. And Jesus is it. Step behind him. Put your faith in him and be saved. There's even a little bit more to learn here, though, because the Bible says, with this idea of mediation, The Bible says that because we as believers are united to Jesus in our belief in him and our faith in him, because we're in covenant with him, and what's his is ours, and what's ours is his, because of union with Christ, the Bible says that you and I as believers are now priests and kings with him.

41:44 So in other words, we, as the people of the king, now fill a covenant role of mediator ourselves. Now, it's a lesser role, obviously, than the one Jesus plays, right? I mean, we don't die for the world's sins. We don't save the world. But we do, as believers, act, as Paul puts it, we act as ambassadors of the kingdom of God. We hold out the word of life. We call the world on behalf of God. Paul says, as if God is speaking through me, we call the world to life in Christ.

42:21 We also, as mediators, pray for the world, just like Abraham prayed for Sodom. You ever think about that? Do you ever think about your prayers being mediation for the world? As you stand in your covenant role as a believer in Christ, united to the king, when you pray to him, you're acting as a mediator between the king and the world. Revelation tells us that the prayers of believers are part of what moves the hand of God, Both to delay judgment and to bring it about.

42:54 It's the prayers of the saints that go up to the temple and into God's nostrils. And in response to the prayers of the saints, God brings history to an end. And he also delays the end of history based on the prayers of the saints. So what we do when we pray is that we stand in the gap and say, Oh Lord, have mercy on our nation. Don't sweep it into the dustbin of history. Don't destroy it like you did Sodom and Gomorrah. Have mercy on our nation, O God, and give it time to repent.

43:29 At the same time that we do that, we also pray, O Lord, thy kingdom come. Let it come. Thy will be done. Let it be done here on earth just like it's done in heaven, which means with 100% certainty. We pray for the end of history, and God hears those prayers of his people, and he acts in response to those prayers. He has mercy and one day the prayers of his people will go into his nostrils like incense and he'll bring about the end of history. Nations rise and fall, empires crumble.

43:59 History is going to come to a crashing end because God's people pray. I think we as believers have an entirely too low an opinion of our prayers. We have too low an opinion of our prayers. We think that prayer is just this way to ask God for some little crumbs, little things to make our individual lives better. I mean, the biggest thing that we think God will do for us is give us some money.

44:30 And if he really decides to get miraculous, he'll heal somebody. But brothers and sisters, it's all too small. The Bible tells us that our prayers as believers move the tides of history. They delay justice for the sake of mercy. And in the end, they're going to bring justice crashing down and call history to its end and let me push it just one step further let me just push this one step further for you if that is true of your prayers just as an individual christian and it is friends just imagine how much more true it is when god's appointed and recognized embassies his churches, like this one, call themselves together, organize, call themselves to order, and then say as one body with one voice, Lord, we, your church, ask you to do this.

45:30 How powerful is that? You know, that's what we do on Sunday evening. And it's why, you know, when I stand up here, I'm like constantly banging this drum, like don't just sit there on Sunday evening letting your mind wander. We're a constituted embassy of the king and we're saying with one voice Lord, this embassy of the king wants you to do this. That's why the amen at the end of those prayers shouldn't just be amen. Amen. It ought to be amen.

46:03 Because we, your embassy, ask for this, oh Lord. Amen. And amen. There are two great things, two great things that we do as an embassy of the kingdom. We hear from the king in the preaching of his word, and then we petition the king to act. Friend, if you're only involved in one of those, you're missing out on who we are as a church. All right, point number two, a compromised believer, we think, a compromised believer.

46:43 So as chapter 19 opens, it becomes really clear why Abraham was so interested in the fate of Sodom, and it's because, as we remember, kind of all of a sudden, at the beginning of 19, his nephew Lot is living there. Now, when we last saw Lot, he was living near Sodom, but now he's obviously not only moved into the city proper, like he's been moving toward it this whole time, right, inching over toward Sodom. Now he's not only living in the city, he's become one of its leaders. That's what it means there in that first verse when it says he's sitting in the gate. And that's part, at least, of what raises the question mark in my point title there. Because what Lot does through this story is just wild. I mean, the things that he does and the things that he gets himself caught up in are just crazy. And what unfolds over the course of this chapter is just shocking on many levels.

47:37 I mean, you know the story. The men come into the city. They're going to sleep in the square. Lot goes, oh, you don't want to do that. I know these people. You do not want to sleep in the town square. So why don't you come to my house? The men of the city gather around and they say, send out those men that you had in your house and what they mean is we want to have sex with them. Now, your Bible has the phrase there so that we may know them and people have done all kinds of weird stuff with that by saying, they didn't want to have sex with them. All they wanted to do was just like check their passport. We don't know who these people are, and we want to know who they are, right?

48:08 And then, you know, then you have to ask, well, then why does Lot then, like, offer his daughters to be had sex with in response to an inquiry about a passport? It doesn't make any sense at all, right? No, the word know in the Bible several different times is a euphemism for having sex. And what they mean is we want to know them. We want to have sex with them. And that becomes really clear when they're not interested in Lot's absolutely jaw-dropping offer of his daughters.

48:41 They want the men. And that's part of why, throughout the history of Christianity, people have interpreted this story to say that what Sodom is judged for is a pervasive wickedness. On every level, pervasive wickedness that has reached its pinnacle in sexual immorality and particularly homosexuality. Now, the details of the story, I think, make that abundantly clear. But Jude, in the New Testament, puts it beyond doubt when he writes, Sodom and Gomorrah, which indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, which is the way the Bible talks about homosexuality, Those two cities serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

49:29 So Jude is very clear on it. They're judged. They suffer eternal fire because of unnatural desire. This way that the New Testament talks about homosexuality. So the sin of Sodom and the sin of Gomorrah is definitely multi-layered. And yes, hospitality is in there. All kinds of stuff. This is pervasive wickedness. And yet, the text is really clear that the hellish crown jewel of it all, the end of the road of that city's sin, was, in fact, homosexuality.

50:00 You know, I think this age in particular that we're living in has basically pushed the Christian church into a deeply compromised position when it comes to the sin of homosexuality. So you go to most evangelical churches and most of what you're going to hear, even from the best of evangelical churches, most of what you're going to hear when it comes to that topic is the need for the church to show compassion toward those who call themselves homosexuals or who struggle with homosexual desires. And to be clear and fast, as far as it goes, that impulse toward compassion and love for people who call themselves homosexuality or homosexuals is right.

50:40 It's good that the church of Jesus Christ A bunch of forgiven sinners should hold out mercy and forgiveness and the good news of salvation to all sinners, including people who say they're homosexual. That's right. But friends, it is also right, and it is also good, and it is non-negotiable that the church of Jesus Christ the King must be clear that homosexuality is, in fact, sin. Homosexual action is sin.

51:12 Homosexual desire is sin, and the Bible could not be clearer about that. I mean, I can just read you verses. The Old Testament, four or five different times, calls homosexuality an abomination before God. The New Testament says that it, like all sin, deserves hell. Paul, in Romans chapter 1, says that it's the epitome of sinful rejection of God, basically because it's the epitome of self-worship. Instead of looking outward to the other, you look inward to yourself and you worship that which is like you.

51:47 An image made to look like you. It simply won't do. It simply won't do for the church to hold out compassion to people who call themselves homosexuals or struggle with homosexual desire without also holding out the truth that it is sin. So what does that mean then for you, especially if that describes you? And maybe same-sex attraction is something that you struggle with every day.

52:20 Maybe you've sort of given in to that and you've said, yeah, that's who I am. I am a homosexual, whether you've ever acted on it or not. Maybe you've just kind of self-labeled like that. What does that mean for you? I think it means the same thing for you that it does for every sinner. But it starts with acknowledging that that is sin. It's not just brokenness. It's not just a result of sin. It is sin. And the first step, the very first step in dealing with that is for you to acknowledge that.

52:52 To agree with God who made you that it is in fact sin. It won't do. It just won't do to try to argue it away. Or to try to caveat it out of existence. Or try to somehow force it out of the category of sin. No, what you need to do is acknowledge it and then repent and come to faith in Christ. It's not to say it won't be difficult. It's not to say that if you come to Christ, that sin will just go away, right? That the desire will just go away.

53:23 I mean, ask Christians, how many of them, whatever sin it is that they struggle with, ask them for how many of them, when the day they come to Christ, their sin just went away. Boom. You want to know how many it will be? Precisely 0%. and John in first John says that if they say zero if they say I don't have any sin anymore because of Jesus they're lying John is very clear about that life the Christian life is just hard it's a struggle with sin and the thing is sin has painted us all in all kinds of absolutely horrific colors it's painted us in all kinds of horrific colors for some it's this ugly color For others, it's that ugly color.

54:03 But all of it, all of it is what Jesus saves us from and calls us to fight until the day we stand with him. But friend, you'll never fight. You'll never fight if you can't even look at the sin and say, that's my enemy. You know, I think we see this struggle even in the life of Lot. And lots of complicated character in this story, isn't he? Back in chapter 14, we saw him make this ominous choice of first living next to the city of Sodom.

54:37 And now, he seems almost completely sucked into the life of the city. I mean, he's still got a conscience, it seems like. But he's a leader sitting in the city gates. He's got two daughters engaged to these two men who seem totally captured by the wickedness of the city. And then for some reason, he's got this idea that it'll be better if he offers his two virgin daughters to the crowd to rape rather than the men. He thinks that's better somehow. Even when the angels tell him to flee, there's this reluctance in him to do so. And by the end of the story, his family, because of all of this, is crumbling into chaos as his daughters get him drunk and sleep with him to try to have a baby.

55:15 It's just chaos. And you're left thinking, oh my gosh. I mean, this guy can't, he can't possibly be somebody who God saved. He can't possibly, it's like there's no possible way, right, that we're going to meet Lot in heaven. And yet, when you think about it, he does defend the angels from the crowd. He does flee the city. And if you look at verse 16, it specifically says that the Lord, in the midst of all of this, was having mercy on him.

55:49 And you want to know the kicker? The apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 2, will call him three different times righteous lot. And say that he racked his conscience about the wickedness of the people. What do we make of all that? Well, I think what we make of it ultimately is that the Bible does not paint in simple primary colors.

56:21 The Bible does not paint in simple colors. It tells us about the people in these stories in stark realism with all their flaws, with all their complexities. Because anything short of that wouldn't be true to life. It just wouldn't be true. And that's what all of these colors in Lot's life do for us as well. On the one hand, it shows us that even for somebody on whom God has mercy, our choices over and over again to compromise with the world can wreck our lives. And the Bible is at pains to do that.

56:52 I mean, you remember that little part in the story where he looks at the angel and says, I can't get out of here totally. Right? There's this other little city, Zoar, over there. And it's such a tiny little city. It's so little. Like, there's no way it's going to cause me any problems. Let me go live there. And it causes even more problems. I mean, our compromises with the world can wreck our lives. And how many times do we do that to God? It's such a tiny sin, Lord. It's not going to destroy me. Look at that tiny little sin. Please, just this once.

57:26 Again and again, he wanted to be near the world. He wanted to be in the world. He wanted to be sharing the world's values. Sure, his conscience was wracked by the wickedness of Sodom, but he also tolerated it. He let it in him. It compromised him. And in the end, his family crumbled. But on the other hand, he gets called righteous Lot. Because God saves him out of the rubble. Out of all the rubble of his choices, God yet saves him.

57:57 I mean, look at the end of chapter 19. Look at why. God saves him. Verse 29 of chapter 19. This is it. So it was. Look at the reason. So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and therefore sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow. Why did God save Lot? It wasn't because of him. He was rubble.

58:29 He saved him because of the covenant with the mediator. Why does God save you? Not because of who you are. He's saving you out of a whole lot of rubble. He saves you because of his covenant with the mediator. Make sure you're with him. Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you that you are the one mediator between God and men. We pray, O Lord, that you would help us to remember that and live in light of it, even as we celebrate it with this ordinance of the Lord's Supper today.

59:03 We pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.