Genesis 19 You suck! But God loves you anyway.

Genesis 19

One day Debby’s going to write a book. This book will be a psychology book, her area of expertise. This book will be an answer to the lies of the “self-help” books. It will be called: “You suck!”.
The subtitle will be “But God loves you anyway”.

That could be the title of these chapters! We’ve reached the final chapter of this little trilogy which started in chapter 17. This story has been a great illustration of sin, judgement, repentance, salvation – and clearly illustrating who gets saved and why. So let’s do the “Previously… in Genesis” and remember what happened back in chapter 17, before we go on to the thrilling finale in chapter 19!

1. Abraham, you suck! But God loves you anyway.

At the end of chapter 16 Abraham and Sarah were failures. They had tried to help God out, messed up their family life, and abused Hagar. They were failures. They probably felt like failures too. “We’ve screwed up. We’ve failed God. We’ll have to settle for second best.” You know, the kind of thinking that we have that God’s plans are dependent on us, and that he had this great plan for our lives but we sinned and ruined it and so now we’ve only got plan b (or c, d, e, z) and we’ll just have to put up with that.

And then God appears to Abraham. Wow! Abraham, you’re still part of the plan. I’m going to bless the world through you - look at 17:7 “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Wow! This is no plan B – this is plan A! But Abraham still can’t quite believe it. Gen 17:18 So Abraham said to God, “May Ishmael (Hagar’s son) live under your special blessing!”

How often are we like that? It seems humble, doesn’t it? “No, I’m okay with this life, this level of blessing, I screwed up. I deserve it.”

But it’s not humble. It is disbelieving God’s word. We refuse to believe we are forgiven. We refuse to believe that we are called to live life as God’s children.

So often we turn away from God and accept second best. How many Christians in Norway are living that “second best” life? Just going through the motions, trying to be nice and decent, but never approaching God, never throwing themselves fully into adoring Christ, never risking anything – because they only can see their sin and failure and not the passionate burning love and forgiveness of the Father.

In other words, like Lot. Lot is what many of us have been, what some of us are, and what many sitting in churches across this country are.

2. Lot ran away from God

Lot’s downfall started back in chapter 13. 10 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the LORD or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram.

Lot turned aside from Abraham and took the “easy” path, the path which required nothing of him. But where do we find him in chapter 19. Not outside the city, with his huge flocks and servants and tents like Abraham. No. Something has gone wrong, and Lot who moved near Sodom because of the land – the easy life – is now in the city, the city of wicked people who constantly sinned against the Lord (13:13). What happened? What happened to Lot and all his wealth? He moved away from the blessing of God in order to protect his wealth, to seek comfort – and he has neither. Gone. Foolish Lot.

And now he’s in Sodom on the eve of its destruction…

19:1 That evening the two angels came to the entrance of the city of Sodom. Lot was sitting there, and when he saw them, he stood up to meet them. Then he welcomed them and bowed with his face to the ground. 2 “My lords,” he said, “come to my home to wash your feet, and be my guests for the night. You may then get up early in the morning and be on your way again.”

The first thing we notice in Lot’s story is that he welcomes the angels, just like Abraham. He quickly prepares a feast for them, just like Abraham. But there’s a difference: Abraham recognises God. Lot doesn’t. “My Lord” says Abraham to the three men. He sees God. “My lords” says Lot to the two men – recognising their authority, but nothing more.

But that’s not really surprising, since it seems that God met with Abraham in a special way. It could have physically been the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus has a human body, a resurrected human body, raised imperishable. And since he is outside of time - he could appear as a human in the Old Testament. Let the theologians debate!
What we do know for certain is that God revealing himself points forward to the incarnation – God becoming man – as the supreme revelation of God to humanity. To stand face-to-face with God!

That’s the kind of relationship Abraham had with God.

Lot had that relationship – but he threw it away. He abandoned the blessings of the covenant for… well, for what? Nothing.

Think about this story. Lot didn’t recognise God when he comes to visit. He didn’t obey the word of God when it came – the angels had to drag him out of the city in v16. His moral thinking was totally warped: he offers his own daughters to the men of the city in v8! Who does that? Hospitality is one thing, risking your own life, even, is to be commended – but his daughters? “Here, why don’t you rape them instead?” Lot had been seriously influenced by Sodom. And his daughters had too, as we see at the end of the chapter. Lot’s life is a mess.

What’s interesting is that the author of Genesis doesn’t stop to moralise over the failings of the people he’s writing about. He doesn’t stop and say “now children, what can we learn from this?”. He simply tells the story. And we see how these choices play themselves out.

We see how separating from the covenant blessing and choosing the so-called “easy” life leads to chaos and confusion. We see how adultery brings hatred, abuse, and family strife. We see how lying and disobedience towards God brings problems for you and those around you. We see how destructive sin is.

Lot ran away from God. Instead of sticking with Abraham and the blessing of the covenant, he chose Sodom.

But how often do we do the same? We know, deeply, intimately know the Creator of the universe. And yet we turn our backs on him and run after sin. And what better place to learn about sin than Sodom.

3. Sinful Sodom

13:13 The people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the LORD. And in 18:20 the Lord says “I have heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, because their sin is so flagrant”

Why Lot? Why would you live in a town like this? Why didn’t you just go back to Abraham and say “I was wrong, I’m sorry”. Pride?

Because Sodom was awful. 19:4 But before they retired for the night, all the men of Sodom, young and old, came from all over the city and surrounded the house. 5 They shouted to Lot, “Where are the men who came to spend the night with you? Bring them out to us so we can have sex with them!”
Did you notice the men of the town so enslaved to their own sinful desires? Their sin is shocking. And it’s not the homosexuality that’s shocking – people sin sexually all the time; and personally I’m more shocked by the sexual sins of Lot’s daughter’s at the end of the chapter.
What’s shocking is how they totally disregarded even social norms. In the Ancient Middle East hospitality was the thing. No-one, and I mean no-one, treated guests badly. We can see that in Lot’s reaction “have my daughters”. It’s an evil statement, but protecting his guests, maintaining his hospitality, was so important he’d even risk his daughters! But all the men of Sodom? They were so consumed by sin that they would even attack visitors to rape them.

Even after they are struck blind, in v11, they “wear themselves out looking for the door” says a more literal translation. They didn’t just give up (like the NLT says) but wore themselves out trying to sin. So determined were they.
Who does that? Who so desperately wants to rape visitors that even when they are BLIND they keep trying to find the way in?

Only people consumed by sin. Ah, sin promises so much, but like an addictive drug once we take its hand its barbs dig in to us and we cannot let go, cannot free ourselves – and it drags us down, deeper and deeper.

I remember watching one of my bosses at work gradually have an affair. He didn’t start out to have an affair. He loved his wife and his two boys. It started so innocently, just a bit of flirting while on a smoke break. Completely innocent. Completely harmless. And then the smoke breaks became longer. And then they just began to have smoke breaks on their own. And then the odd lunch together. And before long they had slept together, their affair was discovered, and two families were ripped apart. That’s how sin works. It looks oh so wonderful, but then it digs into us and we are powerless to stop it. It’s like a rotten apple, that looks beautiful, delicious, on the outside – but you bite into it and it’s disgustingly rotten.

I remember a friend of mine at university who cheated on his girlfriend while she was away. “I couldn’t stop myself” he said. He was devastated.

In my own life, all too often I play with sin, just a little bit, it won’t matter. It always ends up with: Oh God, forgive me, I am a sinner!

Where are we playing with sin? Giving in, just a little. Don’t. Because it will take it all, and it will consume you, like it did the men of Sodom. Turn back to Christ. Fill your mind with his glory, his beauty, his love, his forgiveness. There’s an old song which says that all things of the earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace – and that’s what we want. Capture our vision Lord, fill us with your beauty, so that the sin that seems so attractive just fades away into greyness.

Abraham, for all his faults, was consumed by God. He loved God with everything, and nothing, not even the miracle son Isaac, came between him and God. Everything.
Abraham is the normal Christian. That’s us. That’s who we are. God is our everything. All that I am, is his. Praise God.

Lot, on the other hand, is the type of Christian who tries to keep God at arm’s length. God, you can have this much, but not this. God, Sunday’s are yours, but the rest is mine. God, I have issues with you. God, I think you’re wrong in this area. God…

God made us for himself. We are designed to be in relationship with him. We are designed to be perfect and he is the one who can make us perfect. It doesn’t work any other way. It’s like trying to run your car on Coca-cola. You won’t get very far, you’ll make a big mess, and you’ll wreck your engine!

So, what do we do?

4. The solution

Well, what did Lot do? You know, if you stopped at verse 16: the angels have grabbed Lot and his family, fire starts to rain down – but they are safe. Oh – what would the next scene be? The triumphant joyful reuiniting with Abraham, surely? Hugs and kisses all round. Probably a sacrifice or two to the Lord Almighty, songs of praise, and great thanksgiving.

But no. Even after Lot is rescued he is still afraid, he is still ashamed. Lot never returns for forgiveness but instead exiles himself to a cave – and horrible things happen as a result.

Lot’s self-imposed exile is sin. I can think of no other reason except that he’s trying to pay for his own sin. Cover his own shame. All he has to do is walk up the hill to Abraham. But he doesn’t.

Martin Luther, the Reformer, used to whip himself often as a young monk. He hated himself, hated his sin, hated God and his ridiculous demands of perfection. And so he beat himself, whipped himself, trying to somehow satisfy the wrath of Almighty God.

Is that you? Do you keep yourself away from God? Do you try to punish yourself, whipping yourself with words of abuse or disgust? There is a huge difference between knowing our deep-rooted sinfulness and rebellion, and then rejoicing in the great forgiveness of our Heavenly Father; and wallowing in disgust of ourselves and punishing ourselves for our failures. The first is the work of the Spirit as he shines his light on our darkness, exposes our sin, and convicts us to call on the name of Jesus. Our sin drives us to the Cross.
The second is from the pit of Hell, as Satan condemns us and tells us we do not deserve to come to God, and so we stay away.

Of course we don’t deserve to come to God! Whoever said we did?! That’s grace. Free grace.

Lot did not deserve salvation. Yet he was saved. Why? Because Abraham was praying for him.

Abraham did not deserve salvation. Yet he was saved. Why? Because God loved him.

If you read this narrative in little bits then you can think that Lot is a righteous man. But if you read the story as a whole, chapter 12 to 25, and really dig in – it’s pretty clear that Lot was a wayward fool, a rebellious sinner who was rescued time and again only because of Abraham’s love for him. Abraham blessed Lot, and so Lot was blessed.

It’s a great picture of us and Christ. We are Lot, wayward, throwing our lot in with sinners, getting confused about right and wrong, not recognising the Lord, not running from sin – and in the throne room of Heaven, the Son talks to the Father and pleads for us in our defence. He is our mediator, our Great High Priest who says “my sacrifice is sufficient to cover their sins”.

Now we don’t know what happens to Lot. This is the last we hear of him – a lonely drunkard, raped by his own daughters. Is he in Heaven?
You know, he probably is, since the whole thrust of this story has been that the only reason he’s been shown mercy is because he has an advocate – someone representing him before the throne of Heaven.

But what about you? Are you trying to get to Heaven by yourself? Or do you have an advocate, a representative, at the throne of Heaven? Do you know Christ Jesus, and does he know you?

And if you do know him, is he your all in all? Is he your all-consuming passion? Does he fill your vision in your marriage, watching movies, reading books, with your friends, at work, on the net, at school, with your kids? Is he your glory? Or are you like Lot, hiding in a cave, trying to keep God out?

You’re forgiven. You are accepted. Your sins are paid for. You are part of the covenant. You suck, but God loves you. Believe it.

19:29 But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe.