When You Live Too Close to Sodom

I want you to take your Bibles with me again and turn to Genesis. Tonight we are going to look at one of the most famous - to some infamous - passages in the Bible - the story of God's judgement on Sodom.

Every sermon I've ever heard or read on this chapter follows one of two courses: * The first is a condemnation of the sin of sodomy. What our world today calls homosexuality.

I want to say clearly that God's word condemns homosexuality from start to finish. Specifically, it teaches us that it is an affront against nature and that it is the ultimate result of a society that doesn't want to honor God. God made men and women to be compatible. It's the only combination that can produce children. It's clear from the beginning that it is Adam and Eve. That's God's intention. And God has promised many times in both the Old and New Testaments to punish sodemy.

Now, listen, that's not an easy thing to say anymore. Not in our culture. But we don't get to change the truth just because it's no longer popular.

So that's one way people preach this - focusing on the sin of homosexuality.

The second way people preach this passage is to focus on Lot. Lot is an example of what it looks like to be a totally backslidden worldly Christian. (That's actually what I'm going to be doing, and I'm borrowing the main points of my outline from another preacher.) You see, 2 Peter 2:8 says this about Lot:

"(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)"

It calls Lot a righteous man. I think that means he was a saved man. But he didn't live like it.

He lived a very worldly life.

Now, I want to talk about wordliness for a little bit.

James 4:4 says:

"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God"

Obviously, we aren't supposed to be worldly. 1 John 2:15 says:

"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

So, there is something called "the world" and we are supposed to not love it. We are supposed to stay away from it. I want to address one wrong thought that some people have about the world and worldliness and it's this. Some people take these verses and they think just about everything is worldly. I mean, basically, if anyone in the world does something they say it's worldly. What happens with those people is they become sort of dualistic. They start to think that the body and human life is intrinsically evil and the spirit is intrinsically good.

That's the mentality that led to monasteries and monks. That's the mentality that leads to priests not marrying. It's a heresy.

Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:4-5:

"For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer."

There is this subtle idea that if something appeals to your flesh in any way it's bad and that's just not biblical.

So that gets thrown into the mix.

So worldliness isn't talking about this physical world and it can't be applied to all of human life. God created human life and called it good. He wants us to enjoy it and thank Him for it.

So what is worldliness then? Look back at 1 John 2:16:

"For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."

So here is what worldliness is: It is wanting to do what God doesn't want you to do (the lust of the flesh), wanting to have what God doesn't want you to have (the lust of the eyes) and wanting to be what God doesn't want you to be (the pride of life.) Basically, worldliness is trying to live in this world like God doesn't exist. Doing your own thing to make you happy rather than trusting God for that. Making your own rules. Setting your own path.

And there is a whole system - and that's what it is referring to when it says "love not the world" the world system. There is this whole world system of things that are trying to get by without God.

We have to live in the world but not be of the world. An old preacher named Griffeth Thomas said this:

A ship in the water is perfectly right, but the water in the ship is perfectly wrong. The Christian in the world is right and necessary, the world in the Christian is wrong and disastrous.

What happens when the water gets in the boat? What happens when the world get's in the Christian? There probably isn't a better example of that in the Bible than this story of Lot.

Remember - Lot is righteous. He is saved. He was raised by Abraham. He knows God. He knows the laws of God. But lot has decided he would rather have the city life of the wicked people in Sodom than the influence of his godly uncle Abraham.

So what happens when a Christian lives too close to the world? Let's look at this text and see:

1. You cannot evade the corruption IN other words, if you get too comfy with the world, you'll have to deal with the world's corruption. As you look at this story - You see Lot now living inside of the city of Sodom. This wicked, wicked city is now home to him. More than that - He's a leader of this city. He was something like a congressman from the city - an important person there.

Maybe Lot thought "I can just live here and work here and be around it, but it won't really affect me." But it did church, it did.

Notice...

A. It will attack you (3-9) So these Angels visit Lot and Lot says to the angels "Please, come in and stay for awhile." To which the angels say "no."

By the way, the same angels acted totally different to Abraham. They accepted Abraham's hospitality and ate Abraham's food. They fellowshipped with Abraham. They keep their distance with Lot.

So Lot starts begging the angels to come in. Why? We find out that all of the men of Sodom start pounding on Lot's door saying "Where are the men? Bring them out to us that we may know them." I love that the Bible is so delicate here. But what these men were doing was disgusting. They wanted to gang rape these angels.

This is a sick, sick wicked place. A place where the majority of it's men were so burnt up with lusts that they would demand to rape angels. It's sickening.

And they are persistent. They keep pounding on the door. Yelling at Lot. Threatening him.

Notice the next point:

B. It will affect you (7-8) Notice what Lot does. At first he seems brave. He tells the men "do not so wickedly." He stands up to them.

But then, when the men are persistent - he does something unspeakable. He offers his own daughters to the men.

Do you know what I think when I read that? I think "This man is a waste of life." Who in the world would do such a thing?

The water got in the boat. The world rubbed off on Lot. It affected him.

Listen church - don't think you can get too close to the world and worldliness and it not affect you. It's going to affect you. Evil communications corrupt good manners. You can't play with fire and not get burned. When you play around with worldliness, it takes you farther than you intended. Every. Single. Time.

So, 1. You cannot evade the culture. Number 2 is:

2. You cannot engage the culture Not only was backslidden lot not able to keep the culture off of him, he wasn't able to do any good in the culture because of his lack of testimony.

We are supposed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But notice Lot couldn't do anything about the culture he was in.

Notice in this story that when you get too close to the world...

A. You won't be able to confront it. (9) In verses 8 and 9 Lot offers his daughters to the crowd, then he says 'They came under the shadow of my roof.' He's saying to these people "be decent, show hospitality. Don't do this wicked thing."

Notice what the men say in verse 9:

"This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them"

Let me translate that for you. What they were saying was "This guy Lot comes here and joins us and our culture - then tries to judge us? Who are you to judge? We are going to be worse to you than to them."

Look, Lot came into Sodom and never said anything about the wickedness. He accepted it. He might not of partook in it, but he gave it a nod. Now, when it matters to him, he has no ground to stand on.

When you get too close to the world, you aren't going to be able to confront it. Listen, if you listen to all the filthy jokes at work - dont' kid yourself into thinking you have any moral ground with those people.

You won't be able to confront it. Secondly we see:

B. You won't be able to convince it. (12-14)

In verses 12-14 the angels blind the men, then send Lot out to get his sons in law and married daughters. So Lot goes out and tells his sons and daughters that God is going to judge the city and that they need to get out.

Notice what verse 14 says:

"And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law."

Look, Lot had no ground to stand on with his own kids.

Terry Trivette said this about Lot:

It does no good to cry like Chicken Little "They sky is falling" when you have sunbathing under it all day.

When we as Christians speak to the world about Hell and judgment, we had better live like we believe those exist if we expect them to believe us. If we expect our kids to believe us when we talk about God - we had better live like God is real.

We remove all of our moral authority when we refuse to take a stand on anything or live like any of it is real.

So if you get too close to the world, you cannot evade the corruption, you cannot engage the culture, you

3. You cannot escape the consequences. The saddest part of this story is the destruction that happens, not just to Sodom but to Lot. We see what the long term effects of Lot's living in Sodom has done in his life and in his families life.

First, look at...

A. The effects on his faith. (16-17) he has to be dragged out. (18-20) he asks to go to another city

B. The effects on his family. Lot's wife (26) Lot's daughters (31-36)