Separation Day Genesis 19:1-11

On Memorial Day, many of you and I went to the ceremony at New Home Cemetery just a couple miles east of here to honor those who had served in the military from Eureka and had since passed on.

Once the ceremony ended, Shayla Johnson pointed out a gravestone near the entrance of the cemetery.

The name on the gravestone is N .S. Laudal. He was born in 1864 and died in 1925.

I did some research on this man this week, and he was one of the founders of the

Danish Baptist Association. He was the president of the Danish Theological Seminary in Des Moines, Iowa, so I found that very fascinating.

We have a fairly prominent Baptist who's only buried a couple of miles from here. On the gravestone that was dedicated to this man by the

Danish Baptist, it said these words. It said, Appointed to teach and preach the truth.

That sentence sums up well the calling of a preacher of God's word.

When a preacher is called, he is called to teach and preach the truth. You should never wonder, is the pastor hiding something from me?

The Apostle Paul gave his mentee Timothy these instructions about preaching in 2

Timothy 4. 2. He said, Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Then he warned this in verse 3.

The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

Sadly, we see this all around us, where people get a teacher that they want to hear, who's going to give them what they want, and then the teacher gives them what they want.

Just this week, the news reported that there was a televangelist who wanted his church to raise $54 million so that he could fly around the world in a private jet, telling people about Jesus.

He has given them, these people, at his massive megachurch, he's given them what they want by telling them if they follow

God, they will be rich, they will be healthy, and everything will go well.

And in the process, he is enriching himself as he is a multi -millionaire.

Everyone in the world will be judged by God one day. But those who preach and teach the word of God will be judged more strictly.

James 3 .1 says that. And that will be a frightful day for those who use the word of God for their own gain.

And I want you to know that at Eureka Baptist Church, we take the teaching of the Bible very seriously.

Our goal is never to abuse the text of scripture. Our goal is to deliver the word to you in an accurate and helpful manner.

And pray that this would happen week after week. And I hope that we would pray that together, that we would get it right, get the

Bible right. Then what comes from this pulpit is truly the word of God, if that takes place.

A minister of the gospel is instructed to teach the whole counsel of God, Acts 20 .27.

This means we don't dodge anything that might be controversial in our world today. And you saw this last week as we looked at how

Christians should view present -day Israel according to what scripture says. And I realize this isn't a very hostile environment, but if I would have preached that sermon in some environments, there would have been a lot of people upset.

And we'll see this in our text today as we continue our sermon series through Genesis.

We're going to see another controversial topic. What we will see is a specific sin that was prominent in Sodom.

So if you have a Bible, I encourage you to turn with me to Genesis chapter 19. We'll be looking at verses 1 through 11.

If you're using a red Bible and the P was on page 16. This sermon is titled

Separation Day. Separation Day. And our big idea or proposition is the people of Sodom reveal their true colors.

The people of Sodom reveal their true colors, and we're going to see two ways how. The first is one man chose the evidence of true righteousness.

And so we'll see that that is his true colors. And we'll see this in verses 1 through 3. But before we get to that,

I'll give you a little recap of the sermon not last week, but two weeks ago, because that was the last one in our sermon series.

Two weeks ago, we saw that the Lord had revealed to Abraham what he was going to do to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The Lord revealed to Abraham that he was going to destroy these two cities as they looked over them from miles and miles away.

And what we saw two weeks ago is that Abraham understands true justice. He understands that the wicked deserve to be destroyed, and he understands that the righteous deserve to be spared.

Abraham especially cared about what was going to happen to Sodom because his nephew

Lot lived there. He did not want righteous Lot and his family to be wiped out with the wicked.

Abraham gave the Lord the number 50, and he said, if there are this many people in these cities, will you spare the whole place for their sake?

And the Lord said that he would. And then Abraham kept boldly dropping the number until he got down to 10.

He said, if there are 10 righteous people in this place, will you spare the whole place?

And the Lord said that if there's 10, that he will spare it. As Abraham was having this conversation with the

Lord, the two angels had left. Remember, there was three angels. One of them was the

Lord. And at this point, once the conversation ended, two of the angels left to go to Sodom and Gomorrah.

And we know why they went there. Today we're going to see what their mission was.

This brings us to our text. In verse one, the two angels arrive at Sodom, the place where Lot resides.

This is what it says. 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.

So as the angels arrive in the city, they are met by Lot, who is sitting in the gate of the city.

And when Lot sees them, the text says that he rose to meet them. And what we are going to see in this text is that Lot is going to show hospitality.

Three weeks ago, we saw Abraham show hospitality to these angels.

And now it's Lot's turn. Later on in this passage, we are going to see

Lot do something very bad. But what we are going to see in the early part of this passage is that he demonstrates something very good, highlighting that he truly was righteous.

So what we just saw in verse one is that he approaches them in an appropriate manner.

Lot approaches them. He meets them and bows himself before them to show honor, which is what he should have done.

So he does the right thing here. And we see the honor that he shows by what he says in verse two, the first half of verse two.

Lot said, My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet, that then you may rise up early and go on your way.

So Lot offers to have them stay. And when the angels appeared to Abraham, he knew that they were supernatural beings because they suddenly appeared before him.

If someone were to suddenly pop up here, we would know, OK, that's a supernatural being. That's what happened to Abraham.

In this case, Lot does not recognize them as angels because they actually remember these angels have human form and they walk toward him.

So it'd be just like seeing any other human. They walk toward him and he is ignorant of the reason why they came to his city where he resided.

And we know this because he thought they were travelers who were passing through that were going to spend the night and then be on their way.

But we know why these angels have come to Sodom. They've come to destroy the wicked and rescue the righteous.

And this news is not revealed to Lot until verse 13. At the end of verse two, the angels respond to Lot.

They say no to his invitation to spend the night. No, we will spend the night in the town square.

And the angels respond this way because the custom would have been to stay in the town square. This would have been like the hotel in town, kind of like St.

Croix, you know, the holiday and that would have been the place to stay where normal travelers would have spent the night.

These angels were not planning on destroying the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah until the following day.

In verse 15 says their exit out of town was going to take place the next morning. And they tell

Lot we are spending the night in the town square. And I think they do this to see how hospitable

Lot is going to be. They're testing him here. And in verse three, he proves to be very hospitable.

So verse three says, 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.

So Lot insists that these two guests whom he does not know have a supernatural origin to spend the night.

And they listened to him and agreed to stay at his home. And this brings up a fascinating application for us.

Do you realize that angels may come across your path in your life? Do you realize that angels may have already come across your path and you didn't even know it?

Angels appear in human form just like they did here to see what we will do.

Will we do something that is godly or ungodly? Hebrews 13 .2

says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels without even knowing it.

In 2007, my brother and I ran a half marathon up in Duluth. It's a part of grandma's marathon weekend.

And we ran our race. We finished and we went up on the hill where our hotel was.

And we got some of our stuff and we were about to leave when we walked outside and this man who you can tell, he looked,

I'm not sure if he was homeless or just very disadvantaged. He's very poor, you can tell that. He came up to us and he asked if we could help him out.

He had some shoes that were very beaten up. And when he walked on these shoes, it brought him a lot of pain.

And so he asked us, he said, do you have a little bit of money where I could just get enough money to buy a pair of shoes?

And he wanted specifically to go to Kmart, which was probably a few miles down the road to buy these shoes.

And so my brother and I, we agreed. We said, okay, we can help you out. So we gave him a little bit of money. We got in the car and we drove him to Kmart.

And as we were driving there, he asked us the question. He said, do you guys believe in God? And we said, yeah, we do.

And I remember specifically what he said. He said, I can tell that. And so that was encouraging for us to hear that, that he could tell that we were followers of Christ.

And so when we got there, we dropped him off and then he was on his way. And my brother and I both asked the question, could that have been an angel?

Because we had read the Bible, right? We knew that angels sometimes appeared in human form.

Now, it could have just been a guy. We don't know. This side of heaven, we have no idea when someone is an angel or not, unless the

Lord makes it plainly obvious, which he can do that too. But in this case, we have no idea. But just remember, the

Lord sometimes sends people across your path, or sends angels across your path, maybe to test you to see what you will do.

Now, Lot entertains angels and he does a very good job. And we need to remember this act of faith by Lot, because what he is about to do a little later in this narrative is going to be appalling.

And we're going to be outraged at what he does. But right here, he shows his righteous character.

So Lot not only invites them to spend the night, but he also feeds them unleavened bread and they ate.

So we see this generous act of hospitality. And this is a great reminder, once again, for us to practice hospitality.

The Lord wants us to hear this, right? So this is the second passage we have had in three weeks that tells us we should be hospitable.

We should get in the habit of inviting people over and getting to know them better. And this is something that the

Lord expects us to do. And if we don't do it, we're being deficient in some way.

And actually, just yesterday, Sean and Rachel hosted everybody over, and that was a great act of hospitality on their part.

So we see this. We see people are doing this in our church. We already see this happening. It's something we need to do more and more as the days go on.

Now, once they finished the meal, these two angels who took on human form, it came time to sleep.

But before the two angels and Lot went to sleep, they were interrupted by many in the town with wicked intentions.

And what we are going to see is one of the reasons why the Lord wiped out this city and also the city of Gomorrah.

This is the first way how the true colors of the people of Sodom are demonstrated.

One man shows the evidence of true righteousness, and that is his true colors.

The second way how the true colors of the people of Sodom are shown is the other men show the evidence of true wickedness.

The other men show the evidence of true wickedness, and we'll see this in verses 4 through 11. In chapter 18, verse 21, the author said that the outcry against Sodom was great.

We already saw what was highlighted. The specific outcry highlighted in chapter 18 was that the people of this region were preying on the weak and disadvantaged.

The people we should be caring for, they were hurting these people.

We don't know specifically how, but that's the general idea that is given to us.

And now we're going to see another sin highlighted from these people in verses 4 and 5.

So please look with me here at this text. 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. I like the

NIV translation of verse 4 that says, All the men from every part of the city of Sodom, both young and old, surrounded the house.

So in other words, the mob around the house was represented by people young and old from every part of the city.

These are males from every part of the city. And the sin in the city was represented by every demographic of the male gender here.

So we see their motivation in coming in the house in verse 5.

Word had gotten out that two male visitors had made their way into the city.

And we need to be reminded again what kind of people the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were.

Genesis 13 .13 described them as wicked and great sinners. People who are completely in bondage to their sin.

That's something we need to highlight. People who are completely in bondage to their sin don't just do one sin. They sin in many ways.

Sometimes we just see the tip of the iceberg. And there's so much more under that iceberg.

And verse 5 highlights one of those sins. The text says they wanted to know these two visitors.

The word know in scripture can mean sexual relations. For example,

Genesis 4 .1 said that Adam knew Eve. So the Hebrew word can be used in that way.

And this is undoubtedly what it means here. Sexual relations. These men and boys surrounding the house want to have sexual relations with the two male visitors.

Who we of course know to be angels. Remember, the men of Sodom have no idea that these are angels. They just think these are humans coming through the town and they want to have sexual relations with them.

And so we know the name of the sin. This of course is the sin of homosexuality. And that is why the sin of homosexuality is called sodomy.

Maybe you've heard that term before. Because this town was prominent.

Prominently committed this sin. And we can see very clearly as we look around in our world today that homosexuality is becoming more and more accepted in our culture.

And yet, it is a grievous sin against the Lord. And that's how scripture speaks of it.

And that's how we as Bible -believing Christians need to speak of it. The Bible is clear on this.

God designed sexual relations to happen between one man and one woman in the context of marriage. Sexual relations between the same sex is contrary to God's good design.

And is therefore sinful. And Romans 1 .26 describes it as contrary to nature.

And if we're honest, we can look at it and say, yeah, God designed it, a man and a woman, to be able to enjoy that intimacy together.

He didn't design it for men and men and women and women to have that. And acceptance of homosexuality has pervaded our culture.

And it's happening. If you pay attention at all, you'd be amazed.

You know how it is when something happens slowly over time, you don't really notice how much the change has been. But if we were to go back 10 to 15 years and we were to flash forward today, we'd be like, wow, look how much has happened.

It's become more and more accepted by more and more people. I remember when

I was younger, not many talked about it. And it was not so accepted in the public square.

And today it is very much. I saw something recently. Major League Baseball was having a gay pride night.

At least 23 of the 30 Major League teams were having a gay pride night.

Of course, Minneapolis has a gay pride parade. My favorite NFL team, the

Minnesota Vikings are, sorry, forgive me for that, I realize, they're hosting a forum of including homosexuals in the

NFL, hosting a forum on that to try to say how do we handle this issue.

And again, they're not speaking against it. They're just saying we want to be able to include them in what we're doing.

And let me be very clear on this. This is not a gray issue in scripture. This is very black and white.

God has spoken clearly. He does not approve of sexual relations between the same sex. And what makes the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah even greater is that children were involved, as the text says in verse 4, that the young and the old surrounded

Lot's house. So the implication here is that this would be the sin of pedophilia.

Okay, so this isn't just sexual relations between the same sex. This is pedophilia as well.

And once one sin is accepted in a culture, then more and more becomes accepted not too long after that.

And there might be some things down the road where today you would say, no way will that happen. And then 10, 15, 20 years down the road, things that used to be considered taboo are going to be accepted culturally.

Now the sin of homosexuality has always happened down through history, but we know a culture has been completely given over to depravity when it becomes accepted publicly.

In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul writes about the Lord giving people over to their sin. Romans 1 .32

says, Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

And this is our world today. Our world is very much like Sodom and Gomorrah. As we think about our world today and what thoughts should come to our minds is how patient the

Lord is. As we saw in 2 Peter 3 .9 earlier, it says that the

Lord is patient for the purpose of leading people to repentance. He's patient.

He wants people to repent and to believe in Christ and turn from their sin. And as Christians, we need to be calling people to repentance.

That's true love. When you see someone in a problem, in enmity with God, and you call them to repentance, to have peace with God.

There's another point here we need to be very clear on as Christians. We need to be people who show kindness toward people who live in a homosexual lifestyle.

There's been some Christians, I'm not even sure you can call them Christians, who have really gone off the deep end and said

God hates gays. I mean, that is not at all what the Bible tells us to do. Not even close.

And so we stay away from that. We condemn what those people say. And what we should do is show kindness toward them.

And we should listen to them. We should say, you know what? I know what it's like to be in bondage to sin too.

Because I am a sinner. I am one who is in need of a savior just like you.

I have sins that are very hard for me to fight. And this might be a helpful way to think of homosexuality.

There's certain sins, this is just the sinful nature that each of us have individually.

We have a propensity to sin in certain ways. Like some people might have the tendency to be greedy.

Some people might have a tendency to be angry. Some people might have a tendency to be prideful.

The list goes on and on and on. And some people have the tendency to have attraction to the same sex.

And then if you act on that, that's when it becomes sinful. The text of scripture actually says that it's those who practice homosexuality are the ones who are sinning.

So if you have a same sex desire and you don't act on it, but you resist it, you're actually not sinning in that way.

But it's when you act on it, when you give in to that temptation, that's when the sin is taking place.

So one sin might be a 9 out of 10 for me, and another sin might be a 1 out of 10 for me.

So I think that's a helpful way to think of this. So we don't want to single out people who struggle with homosexual attraction as if they're far worse than anyone else.

They're not. We all have sinful struggles that we face, and we need to be sympathetic toward them.

And the most loving thing we can tell them is to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, as we have.

And by believing in Him, the Holy Spirit will be given to bring transformation where they can turn from the sin.

Just this week, I read an article about a lady who was in a same sex relationship and left it when she became a follower of Christ.

And she said, you know, the world was telling me this was okay, this was okay. But she found

Jesus, and she realized those were lies. That was not the truth. That wasn't true love. And she has submitted to Christ.

And she said she's so much more joyful today than she was in that old lifestyle. Everyone wants freedom, and God has the power to set one free.

And I address this here extensively because this is a big moral issue in our culture today.

The Bible speaks clearly on it, and we need to be clear on it as well. We need to truly love people the way the

Bible tells us to, by pointing them to Christ and not accepting their sinful lifestyle. But do it with gentleness and respect.

That's what 1 Peter 3 .18 says. It says, do everything with gentleness and respect. Sometimes people can be right in their content, but they just say it in the completely wrong way.

We don't want to be those people. We want to be people who are patient with them. We do it with gentleness and respect.

Now as these men are surrounding Lot's house, Lot tries to plead with them in verses 6 and 7.

This is what he says. This is what the narrative says. 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. So Lot goes out to the men and shuts the door so that they can't get in and tells them not to act so wickedly.

He is outraged by the act they want to commit with the men he is hosting. And as he says, my brothers, he's identifying with them, not morally identifying with them, but he's identifying with them as a mere fellow citizen in the city.

It would be like us calling each other a fellow Eureka Knight, right? We're brothers here. This is our town.

This is where we live. Now the text of Scripture makes a clear distinction between righteous

Lot and the wicked citizens of Sodom. 2 Peter 2 .8, as I read this morning, says this of Lot.

As that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard.

So by Lot being outraged at what they are doing, he is showing that he sees their wickedness.

And as I mentioned, we are going to see Lot sin very bad pretty soon here. But he does have righteous deeds.

We already saw one of them in that he shows hospitality. And here he is protecting his guests from being violated by the citizens of Sodom.

And this is the difference, by the way, between believers and unbelievers. Believers are those who trust in the

Lord in repentance. So you believe in him at the beginning of your walk with Christ, but you continually repent as you go through your walk with Christ, realizing that you're still fighting sin.

Unbelievers are those who completely are given over to their sin. And they're in bondage.

There is no turn from it. There's a love for it that you just keep coming back to it because you want it.

You want your sin and you don't want God. A helpful way to think of this is my old professor said, it's not as though Christians are sinless, but they do sin less.

So Lot would be in that category. Now in verse 8, we see Lot's grave sin.

He says, behold, this is what Lot is saying to these men outside. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man.

Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.

And this is what we were appalled at. Lot offers his two virgin daughters to the men instead of the two men he is taking care of.

And what we see here is a misplace of priorities for Lot. In an effort to protect the men he is hosting, he offers his family, his two daughters, to these men.

One author that I was reading said, in ancient times, hospitality was especially important because to stay at the inn would have been dangerous.

But a home would have been much more safe and enjoyable. You were to provide a safe place to stay and go above and beyond for your guests.

And the Bible agrees with this. Lot may have had the importance of hospitality in his mind, but still his willingness to give up his daughters was an awful sin that he committed here.

There was no good ending to what he was doing here by offering his daughters. And Bible commentator

Ken Matthews said this, he said, he surely offends his own sense of right behavior while attempting to save face with the strangers.

For a moment, it is Sodom that has taken up residence in Lot's soul. So he, what the culture is doing here is actually rubbing off on him, where he actually offers, that's something they would do, and he does it here.

In verse 9, we get the response of the mob of men surrounding the house. But they said, stand back.

And they said, this fellow came to sojourn, and he has become the judge.

Now we will deal worse with you than with them. Then they pressed hard against the man,

Lot, and drew near to break the door down. So thankfully, they do not receive

Lot's request by taking his daughters. Rather, they dig in their heels, and they show that they still want the men, the two angels who are inside the house.

And they point the finger at Lot by saying, how did this foreigner become the judge of us? Who is this man who just moved here not too long ago?

Remember, Lot used to live with Abraham in the land of Canaan, and now he comes here. Who is this guy to tell us what we can do and what we can't do?

And remember, Lot made the judgment that what these people were going to do was sinful.

And Lot's diagnosis was right, because the Lord saw their acts as wicked also. And you hear this in our culture when people say, who are you to judge?

That's people's favorite Bible verse. Who are you to judge? And yet they take it out of context. Matthew 7, 1 through 5.

So Matthew 7, 1 says, do not judge, or you too will be judged. And what that passage says is we need to be careful how we judge.

Not that we should not offer a judgment to someone, because what that passage says is that we need to take the plank out of our own eye.

We need to make sure that we're not in the wrong, and then once we're sure that we're not in the wrong, then we can offer a correction to someone in a loving way.

And Lot here makes a correct diagnosis. And when Christians call out sin in the culture based on what

God's Word says, you are not being judgmental. Again, as long as you do it in the right way, but you are stating the truth.

And that being said, Christians should always, as I mentioned, speak with gentleness and respect. Both content and tone are very important.

This mob of men and boys tell Lot that the wicked things they were going to do to the men who were angels, they are now going to do even worse to Lot.

So they're going to do things against their will. And we need to pick out something very important here.

These men of Sodom knew that what they were doing was wrong. You see that?

They said the bad things we were going to do to these people, now we're going to do it to you.

So they're acknowledging that what they were going to do was sinful, and they were going to do it anyway.

The reason people sin is because it makes them feel good. We know this from our own experience. We're all sinners in this room.

Sinners try to justify it. But deep down, everyone knows that sin is wrong. Romans 2 .15

says that the law of God is written on people's hearts. People suppress that what they are doing is wrong.

But at times, they will admit that it is indeed sinful. Like what the mob around the house admits here, as they tell

Lot what they are doing. So as they have this intention to violate

Lot, they charge at him and push Lot toward the door to break it down. But here is where Lot realizes that these are not ordinary men who are inside his house.

Verse 10 reveals this. But the men reached out their hands. So the angels.

The angels reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door.

Then in verse 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.

So these angels had the strength to grab Lot from the men, bring him inside and shut the door.

And in verse 11, we see that these angels. We see what they do. They strike the men and the boys outside the house with blindness.

Both small and great. Small and great means young and old. And these angels make their intention clear.

They came to Sodom on a mission to rescue the righteous and destroy the wicked.

They are distinguishing between the righteous who are on one side of the door and the wicked who are on the other side of the door.

That brings up an important application. Which side of the door are you on? Are you with these angels who are with God or are you on the other side?

They protect Lot here from these wicked people. And they are going to protect him as the righteous man from the coming destruction on these cities.

So this is the second way how the people of Sodom show their true colors. The other men show the evidence of true wickedness.

So to summarize here, the people of Sodom reveal their true colors. And we've seen two ways how these true colors have been revealed.

The first is one man shows evidence of true righteousness. That's, of course, a lot by showing hospitality, by treating these visitors well.

And the second way how is the other men show the evidence of true wickedness. And as I've already mentioned, and as we have seen in our sermon series through Genesis, one becomes righteous through Jesus Christ.

I always want to emphasize that. When you believe in him, not only are your sins forgiven, but you are also counted righteous with the righteousness of Christ.

So God considers people righteous in that way. And what happens is that if you are a true follower of Christ, what happens is that you actually do righteous acts.

And so you're righteous in that way, too. And if you belong to Jesus, then you will be set aside as these angels sent from God set aside

Lot. And you will not face any coming destruction. One of the greatest verses in Scripture is

Romans 8 .1. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

However, there are many people in this world who do not know Christ. There are many people who,

I mean, you look around you, they don't know Jesus. We know that. And there may be people in this room who do not know

Christ as their Lord and Savior. And the way that you come into a relationship with Christ is to recognize that you have sinned.

And you deserve God's punishment for your sin. You recognize your sin is against a holy

God. Sometimes we think we're a pretty good people because we compare ourselves to the people around us. We think, you know what,

I'm not as bad as this guy. You can always find someone worse than us, right? But when we compare ourselves to a holy

God who never sins, who's completely spotless, who's completely righteous, then we're in trouble.

Realizing that He's going to judge us based on His standard, not our standard.

And when you come to this realization, you realize that you need someone to stand between you and God.

And there's only one person who stands between you and God, and that's Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 2 .5 says there is one

God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus.

What we must do is pray to receive Christ. That's how you come into a relationship with Him. What happens is that you're not only spared from God's just punishment, but you also get to enjoy

God. You get to be in a relationship with the One for whom you were created.

And He will take you safely to be with Him in Heaven one day. You're created to have this joy with the

Lord, and the offer is there for everybody to believe. And all you need to do is pray to the

Lord and ask Him to forgive you of your sins and trust that what Christ did on the cross and through His resurrection is sufficient to save you.

And it is. God made a way to satisfy His just demand by sending

Jesus to die on the cross for us. The punishment was completely exhausted, completely satisfied.

And so if you believe in Him, you don't have to face any punishment for your sin. There really is no greater news in the world than that.

That's it right there. So I pray that everybody in this room believes.

And someday, years from now, time goes by fast. I hope the Lord keeps me here for a long time.

And Brianne and I, we love it here. We want to stay here a long time. And I hope that when we get to the end, that we can all go to Heaven together.

I don't know when that will be, but we want to have a church who has a high percentage of people, if not 100 % of the people here, who know

Christ as Lord, Savior, and treasure. And what we will see in our next sermon next week as we go through Genesis here is the righteous are rushed to safety outside of Sodom, and the wicked are left to experience the just wrath that is to come.

Let's pray. Father in Heaven, we thank

You, Lord, for Jesus. Really, all the Scripture points to Him. When we realize that we are sinners, we can go to the depths of the people at Sodom, Lord, left unrestrained.

We have that capability in us. But I thank You for Jesus Christ. I thank You that He died on our behalf and has brought us life.

We thank You for Your grace in our lives. And Lord, may we have a proper understanding of what love is.

May we have a proper understanding of what is right and what is wrong. Because our culture has so much wrong.

They're not reading the Bible. They're going off of feelings and what they think should be right instead of saying, okay, what is right?

You are the standard of what is right and wrong, Lord. And we want to be happy.

But we will only be happy if we find it in You. And so I pray that we would all understand this,

Lord. And that we would plead with others to know Jesus Christ as well.

And that they would see, Lord, the sincerity of our call for them to believe. And that You would save many for Your glory in this community.