Sunday Night, November 4, 2018 PM

Very concerned about, for instance, as Paul's writing to the church in Rome, a very pagan city, good luck trying to find meat that wasn't sacrificed to an idol first. And it's hard to understand how the industries work, but basically, every single industry had its, for lack of a better term, union.

But the union was actually a cult. It was whatever god or goddess, patron god or goddess of that industry. And to belong to that guild, you had to worship that god or that goddess. So you may imagine that those who were in charge of butchering animals and selling meat, so on and so forth, it all got offered up to whatever god or goddess it was, and then got sold.

And so people would go buy it. And very often, you would also go to other temples that also had offered up meat to their god or goddess. And of course, they never ate any of the food that was offered to them.

So they just sold it in market or sold it kind of in a restaurant setting. And so if you live in a city like that, you can't find meat anywhere that's worth eating. And at least for a Jew, he brought up Jewish, even if there was some meat somewhere that had not been offered up to an idol, what are the chances that it was kosher and prepared in the proper way?

So the one who is weak feels like he has no other option but just to eat vegetables, and probably claiming Daniel as credence. But now, the person who does that, OK, so there's one who's strong and can eat all things.

Idols are nothing. They're just rocks. Who cares? This would be kind of the Martin Luther approach to things, mocking the idols as he probably would go buy the meat, sit down on top of the idol, and eat it.

So fie upon you. But verse 3 says, the one who eats the meat is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat. So that's the temptation, isn't it? Rather than accept this one, we would regard them with contempt.

So I have a brother in Christ who's fairly strict Sabbatarian. So on Sundays, you're not supposed to go out to eat, and you're not supposed to go do anything. You go home and you sleep. And you probably need to prepare your meals on Saturday night so that you're not working really hard on Sunday.

That's not the purpose of Sunday. Very strong convictions about Sunday as the Christian Sabbath. I don't think you have to read the Bible that way. And I'm fairly convinced of my position. And I'll go out to eat and everything else.

But I'm not to regard him with contempt, my weaker brother. Now, the one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat. And the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats.

For God has accepted him. And what is our acceptance? It is Christ, the righteousness of Christ. That's the one in verse 7, just as Christ accepted us to the glory of God. So in that, to answer the question is, we're supposed to bear with one another.

So if we have differing convictions on something, the one who homeschools could say, I don't want to put my kids in government schools for a variety of reasons. And this person says, well, you need to rethink that position.

And there's disagreement. Disagreement. Well, whatever the case, we are not to regard with contempt one another about that conviction. And we are not to judge one another about that, unless it's a matter of actual sin.

Is there actual sin? Very clear and outlined for us in the scriptures about that matter. So we're not talking about someone who says, God has called me to be a polygamist, and don't judge me. So it was a clear violation of scripture.

We're not talking about those kinds of things, obviously. And so there's several instructions. And all of it comes down to this, that what we do, we do in worship to God. Those who observe the day do as to the Lord.

Those who do not make one day better than the other, do that unto the Lord. It must be a matter of faith. And we're not supposed to do anything, verse 21, verse 21 says, it is good not to eat meat or drink wine, do anything by which your brother stumbles.

So for instance, my Sabbatarian friend, I'm not going to invite to go with me to the shooting range on Sunday afternoon. He's probably going to decline and wonder why I would ask him to do that. Now, if I ask him to go on a Monday, it'd be perfectly fine.

OK.

So to do, once we understand each other's convictions, rather than throw contempt on one another, we're going to bear with one another and not press each other on that. The verse 22, the faith that you have, have as your own conviction before God.

Happy is he who does not condemn himself and what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith. Whatever is not from faith is sin. So there's a church down in Ada, it's I think it's a Sovereign Grace Bible Church, and we sometimes visit them on Thanksgiving.

And it's two churches that came together, and they have three or four different elders, and they're all bi-vocational. And in the merging of the two churches, they had to find a way to merge kind of two cultures and two sets of convictions.

And this is made clear by when the Lord's Supper comes about, and they pass the cup, the drink. Well, in the inner circle, it's wine. In the outer circle, it's grape juice. Because some people have convictions one way, and some people have a conviction the other way.

And everybody knows, and everybody gets along. But the person who says, you know, it was, Jesus said we're supposed to, what it was, it was wine. And we need to do it the way the Bible says. And the other people says, well, I don't think it's kind of a bad idea.

So they have different convictions, but they found a way to love one another and work their way through that, you see? So at some level, if someone's conviction, let's say someone visited here, and they noticed that we don't force the women to wear doilies on their head, head coverings, and that is their background, that is their conviction, and they are very offended that we don't do that.

OK?

Well, if they make it their campaign to evangelize, proselytize us, to force this change in our midst, we're going to be talking about how we read that passage, how we understand that, and the differences of convictions, and so on and so forth.

And Loretta's the only one abiding by it. And in that sense, they would probably start with Loretta and try to get her to their side. And Loretta says, I like the hat. And so anyway, the end result is we're going to ask them to abide with us, and we're not going to come upon you if you decide to come wearing your head covering.

We're definitely not going to ask you to take it off, so on and so forth. But you're also not going to force that upon us. Now, if they decide to continue with that, they're going against the scripture.

They're disobeying the instructions. At that point, we've got some clear scriptural guidelines to say, look, I don't think you're actually bearing with us. I don't think you're actually allowing us to have our convictions as unto the Lord.

And part of that's the reason why we have different churches and different denominations, to a degree, so that we can worship in accordance with our own convictions and not go against faith, and therefore sin.

So it's usually a long process. It's not ever cut and dry. It's not a quick thing. It's a process of talking with one another and ensuring that we're accepting one another in Christ.

Does that help?

It's a very important thing. Every church has to think through that if they're going to have a healthy body life.

Somebody slipped through one, and nobody knew it.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so probably not an honest mistake. But you do have to realize, too, it is one of those conundrums that Baptist churches have from time to time, that the communion usually stays so long in the church pantry that it may have been an honest accident.

I mean, you leave it alone long enough. Anything else? OK, well, let's open our Bibles to Genesis 19. As we move along in the story, we remember that we are tracking the promised seed, that after the fall, after Adam and Eve sinned, after they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the temptation being that they would be wise like God in determining good and evil for themselves, God cast them out of the garden, but not without hope, as he instituted the sacrificial system in killing two animals and covering their naked shame with the skins of the animals, and also promised them that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent, though his own heel would be crushed.

There is a promise of the seed of the woman. And so we keep coming back to that focus. And with the flood, there was a focus upon Noah, and then a focus upon Shem, and tracing his lineage all the way to Abram, who has now been renamed Abraham.

And clarity has come to Abraham and to Sarah that, indeed, they will have a child, and he will be an ancestor of the promised seed. Now, along the way, Abram, as he traveled to the promised land, he came with his nephew Lot.

Lot's father died early, and so Lot became essentially the head of his particular side of the household, though he was under Abram's watch care. At a certain point, they were so prosperous in their nomadic herds that they had to part ways.

And so Abram, in a moment of generosity, allowed Lot, the younger, to select for himself which direction he wanted to go with his herds. They had been in the area long enough to know the lay of the land and who it was among whom they lived.

But Lot, when he looked towards the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah, he saw fertility. He saw an opportunity for abundance. He saw an opportunity for wealth, never mind who he would have to live among. He wasn't concerned about that.

And so he pitched his tent towards Sodom. However, by the time we get to chapter 19, his tent is not pitched towards Sodom. He is in the city gate of Sodom. He has gone from being someone living on the outskirts of Sodom, someone living in the countryside, to someone who is in the city gate at the evening, which means he's an elder of the city.

Now, that makes some sense because of Lot's background, his connection to Abraham. He's probably one of the most upstanding, such as it is, people who live in Sodom. He's probably got his wits about him more than anybody else.

And it makes sense that he would be called upon and relied upon. He's at the city gate. But we also see that he has severely compromised himself. And now, God had spoke to Abraham because Abraham was his friend, because God had purpose to do mighty things through Abraham.

He let Abraham know what he was about to do. He was sending his two angels to investigate, to see just how wicked and bad Sodom and Gomorrah had become. And if it was as bad as it is, by sending his angels, he would prove just how bad things were and then bring a righteous judgment.

And of course, again, we just see the long suffering and the mercy of God in all of this. God didn't really have to wait. He didn't have to come investigate. But he does these things to invite Abraham to implore and to pray, to intercede for Lot, and also to give Lot an opportunity to escape.

So this is a very merciful thing that God does. Now, at the very first of Genesis 19, in verses 1 through 11, this is a passage that we've read through already. But we'll take another look at it. We have the disgusting affront of sin.

The angels waste no time in implementing their test. The test of the quality of any ancient Near East city was, can I sleep in the city square unharmed? That was one test. The other test would be whether or not there be hospitality.

Because in the ancient Near East, where you would have to travel for several days to get anywhere, there was an understanding that every single city would offer hospitality and put you up. Complete strangers, they really didn't have a lot of inns or hotels or anything like that.

It was about going into a city. And that city staked their reputation and their moral quality on how they took care of strangers. This was such a critical social norm for the ancient Near East that a city that did not protect strangers and did not host them well was considered to be a criminal city and would face the punishment of death.

And an example of that would be in the book of Judges, near the end of the book of Judges, when things are really, really bad. And there's a Levite who goes and grabs his concubine from where she ran off, because he was probably abusing her, and takes her back.

And they decide to spend the night in a city of Benjamin. And those men betrayed that code. And then they were all sentenced to death. Benjamin, the tribe, tried to protect them. And that's when you had the civil war between the tribe of Benjamin and the rest of Israel.

So this is what is supposed to be expected. Two angels come. They're in the form of, they look like real human beings. They come, and they test Lot. And Lot urged them to turn aside to him and enter his house.

Please stay with me, he says. And when they do that, the men of Sodom hear that Lot has two male guests. And notice verse 4. Before they laid down the men of the city, the men of Sodom surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter.

Remember the question at the end of chapter 18, Abraham's question, will you really judge and sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there's 10 righteous? Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?

Just 10 among the whole city of Sodom, which is no small place. But here we read that the verdict is that all the men of the city, young and old, all the people from every quarter. So there's no exceptions here.

We see how thoroughly sinful Sodom is. And they call out to Lot and say to him, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them. So they want to rape these men.

Lot, as corrupt as he is, offers his two daughters. That does not satisfy their perversions. And so they press hard against Lot. They try to break down the door. They're going to do it by violence. And as they rush the door, the angels pull Lot inside, strike all the men with blindness.

And the men don't go home. They exhaust themselves still trying to break down the door. That's how far gone they are. So we have the disgusting affront of sin, verses 1 through 11. Why is Lot living there?

But then again, it's like the old parable of the frog in the kettle, slowly turning up the heat, and it never notices until it is cooked. Now, notice in verses 12 through 14, the atmosphere of sin. Notice how Lot and the angels talk about what's going to happen next.

Then the two men said to Lot, whom else do you have here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of this place, for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it.

Verse 14, Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, up, get out of this place, for the Lord will destroy the city. But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

This is so far out of character for Lot, to say something like this. This is so far out of the realm of possibility in their thinking, that this has to be a joke. You can't be serious that you would say something like this.

And so sin, when it's not repented from, and as sin builds up, it creates a distorting atmosphere where everything is excused, everything is made relative to something else, and judgment is a joke, like this couldn't possibly happen.

Do we sense anything of that in our own society? Hell is a joke. It's not serious. It could be profanity, but it's certainly not anything real to be taken seriously. And even civil justice and civil judgment has become seen as unjust.

That if someone commits criminal acts, any effort by the government to punish severely for the good of society is seen to be an overreaction. If someone breaks the law and the authorities respond according to the law, the authorities are said, you're overreacting.

That's a distorting atmosphere of sin. So now let's notice what happens next in verses 15 through 22. There is a debilitating ailment of sin where it appears that Law and his family do not have the ability to run away from sin anymore, or even to run away from the destruction that is coming because of sin.

Verse 15, when the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city. Notice verse 16, but he hesitated.

Do you see that? But he hesitated. He should be leading the charge. He should be out in front saying to the angels,.

Which way do I go?

But he's hesitating. He's having to be urged to go, and even after he's urged to flee the life of sin and the coming judgment, he still hesitates. Notice the mercy of God. So the men seized his hand, and the hand of his wife, and the hands of his two daughters.

Never really think about it, but God sent two angels to Sodom, and they came in human form, and they came with two hands apiece, and they filled each one of those hands with sinners who otherwise would die in the judgment.

And they grabbed him, and they only had the two hands. And they grabbed him, and they dragged him out of the city. Notice why the angels do this. For the compassion of the Lord was upon him. That's the only reason why.

That really is the only reason why any of us are delivered from sin, is because the compassion of the Lord is upon us. Left to ourselves, we would hesitate. Left to ourselves, we would rather take the familiar and the attraction of what sin offers to us.

We want to define good and evil for ourselves, like Eve did, like Adam did. We want to live our own way. We want to grab what we think will please us and satisfy us, and we hesitate running away from that which has held such promise to us.

But if the compassion of the Lord is upon us, then we will be delivered. And they brought him out, and they put him outside the city. When they brought them outside, one said, escape for your life. Do not look behind you, and do not stay anywhere in the valley.

Escape to the mountains, or you will be swept away. But Lot said to them, oh, no, my lords. Notice he just can't run away. He just can't run away. Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by saving my life.

But I cannot escape to the mountains, for the disaster will overtake me, and I will die. You know, this repentance is too severe. What you're asking me to do is just too costly. Now behold, this town is near enough to flee to,.

And it is small. It is small.

Please let me escape there. Is it not small that my life may be saved? And the name of the city is Zoar. He said to him, behold, I grant you this request also, not to overthrow the town of which you have spoken.

Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the town was called Zoar, meaning small. Sodom and Gomorrah, Adna, and Zeboim, these are two. Sodom and Gomorrah are greater cities.

Adna and Zeboim are smaller cities, kind of a satellite kind of city. And then Zoar is just a little village. And Lot just can't bear the thought of leaving this area. And he said, let me go to Zoar. And notice the mercy, just how long-suffering, how compassionate, how forbearing God is to allow this to happen.

But he just can't run away. He just can't run away. He's just stuck to his sin. And I think this is one of those chapters in the Bible that is meant to show you how entangling sin is, how awful sin is.

And this is one of those stories that you read about in the paper and you just thank God that wasn't me. This is the effect this is supposed to have on us. So notice verses 23 through 26, the deadly allure of sin.

And of course, we come to the part of the story about Lot's wife. The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.

And he overthrew the cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground. But his wife from behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. This is now become the proverb from then on was remember Lot's wife.

And the lesson of it is to completely break with sin, to completely deny and flee sin, to recognize it for what it is, to recognize the judgment of God upon that sin and to not look back and think there's something worthwhile back there.

There's something worth grabbing hold of. There's something worth saving out of sin. She looks back completely against the instructions of the angels and she becomes a pillar of salt. In this, there is a bit of the object lesson is said again and again throughout the Bible, but this is where it's one of the earliest times that we hear it, that you become what you worship.

You become what you worship. And because she worshipped and valued the sin, what Sodom and Gomorrah became, she became in its destruction. We see the parallel. But the allure of sin, as strong as it is, always ends in death.

Now, let's look at verses 27 to 29. This is, we go back to hear about Abraham, who had prayed and interceded for Lot and for these cities. Verse 27, now, Abraham rose early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before the Lord, the same place where he had interceded for Lot.

And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley. And he saw and behold the smoke of the land, ascended like the smoke of a furnace. Thus it came about, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, that God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.

So even though God didn't answer Abraham's prayer, he answered Abraham's prayer. He didn't spare Sodom and Gomorrah, but he did spare Lot. And now we're not told what Abraham is thinking when he's viewing that, but can you imagine that?

That you come out and, you know, one quarter of the horizon is nothing but smoke.

1 ,000 miles around, the ground is covered with burnt rock. And he said, there's no volcanic activity anywhere in this area that could answer for this. And it's not in the soil. He said, this had to fall out of the sky.

And so there's no doubt that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is perfectly historical and true.

Yeah, and what kind of lesson do you think Abraham reflects on as he watches what happened? Isn't that a deterrent? Isn't that a deterrent? And Sodom and Gomorrah becomes a deterrent throughout the scriptures, that when God wants to deter people from sin, he mentions Sodom and Gomorrah as a lesson.

When we see the end result of sin, that deters us from being flippant about sin and engaging freely in sin. If we can see the end of it, and God is so merciful to give us many examples, but Sodom and Gomorrah is a chief one.

And what a lesson for Abraham and everyone else who knew what Sodom and Gomorrah was about, and then they see the results. The last lesson about sin in this chapter, and it's a very thorough chapter on sin, is the degrading advancement of sin.

The thing about sin is that it's like an acid that never stops eating through wherever it's at. It's gonna continue to advance. And so we find, this is with Lot. Lot went up from Zoar and stayed in the mountains.

So he ended up going where he was told to go anyway, and his two daughters with him, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar, and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters. Now, how's that working out, his original decision?

Pitching his tent towards Sodom. Now he's living in a cave in the mountains. And the firstborn said to the younger, our father is old and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the man of the earth.

Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father. So they made their father drink wine that night, and the firstborn went in and lay with her father.

And he did not know when she laid down and when she arose. On the following day, the firstborn said to the younger, behold, I lay last night with my father. Let us make him drink wine tonight also. And then you go in and lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father.

So they made their father drink wine that night also, and the younger arose and lay with him. And he did not know when she laid down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

The firstborn bore a son, called his name Moab, for he is the father of the Moabites to this day. As for the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ami. He is the father of the sons of Ammon to this day.

By the way, Ben-Ami means the son of my father. The statics get worse, and it never plateaus. The old adage is be killing sin or it will be killing you. And what we find with Sodom and Gomorrah, that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for their sin, and yet Lot and his daughter still stank of Sodom.

They still had the same value system. They still had the same perspective. And we have his two daughters debasing their father. And it just from beginning to end in Genesis 19, is just a confirmation of what God said about humanity before and after the flood, that every intent of the heart of man was only evil continually.

And unless we have the grace of God, you know, we're not gonna make it out. Sodom and Gomorrah was the utopia, was utopia of that land. It was the wealthiest, luscious, most tolerant, most accepting, most progressive and advanced city in that whole region.

And it was the worst place possible to live. And it fell under the judgment of God. So it's a lesson to deter us from sin. All right, well, let's go ahead and close by singing the doxology together.

All right.