This is a story that we are all
familiar with, and it is a portion of scripture that we need to look
at with seriousness. We are going to look today at how a person can
stand in the presence of God and be counted as righteous. Or maybe
we should ask, “Is that even possible?” How can anyone be
counted righteous in God's sight? Does God care if people choose to
live an immoral life? I spoke strongly against homosexuality last
week, but is homosexuality really a sin?
The Bible answers these
questions very clearly and we need to be reminded of these clear
truths from the Word of God as we are consistently bombarded by our
culture with claims to the contrary. This story may remind us of
what happened in Noah's day, and it should open our eyes to what is
happening right now in our own society.
Let's
read Genesis 13:14-17
14 The Lord said
to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Lift up your eyes and
look from the place where you are, northward and southward and
eastward and westward, 15 for all the land that you
see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. 16 I
will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can
count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be
counted. 17 Arise, walk through the length and the
breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”
Genesis
15:5-6, 13-16
5 And he brought
him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the
stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So
shall your offspring be.” 6 And he believed
the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
13 Then
the Lord said
to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be
sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there,
and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I
will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they
shall come out with great possessions.15 As
for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be
buried in a good old age. 16 And
they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”
Genesis
17:1-5, 15-17
1 When Abram was
ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said
to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and
be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant
between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then
Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold,
my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a
multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be
called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have
made you the father of a multitude of nations.
15 And God said
to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name
Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will
bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. I
will bless her, and she shall become nations; kings of peoples
shall come from her.” 17 Then Abraham fell on
his face and laughed and said to himself, “Shall a child be
born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety
years old, bear a child?”
Genesis
18:20-21
20 Then
the Lord said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and
Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave,21 I
will go down to see whether they have done altogether according
to the outcry that has come to me. And if not, I will know.”
Genesis
19:1-7, 10-17, 24-26
1 The two
angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate
of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself
with his face to the earth 2 and said, “My
lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the
night and wash your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on
your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the
town square.” 3 But he pressed them strongly; so
they turned aside to him and entered his house. And he made them a
feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
4 But before they
lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old,
all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. 5 And
they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you
tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know
them.” 6 Lot went out to the men at the entrance,
shut the door after him, 7 and said, “I beg you,
my brothers, do not act so wickedly.
10 But the men
reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and
shut the door. 11 And they struck with blindness
the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great,
so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.
12 Then the men
said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons,
daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the
place. 13 For we are about to destroy this
place, because the outcry against its people has become great
before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy
it.” 14 So Lot went out and said to his
sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of
this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city.”
But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
15 As morning
dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your
two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment
of the city.” 16 But he lingered. So the men
seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the
hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought
him out and set him outside the city. 17 And as they
brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look
back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest
you be swept away.”
24 Then the Lord rained
on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out
of heaven. 25 And
he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the
inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But
Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of
salt.
All scripture is quoted from the ESV.
