"How In The World Did I End Up In This Mess?"

One of the most disgusting events that I’ve ever read is found in our passage of Scripture this morning.

Read Genesis 19:30-38

How in the world did this family end up in such a mess?

How in the world did they end up living in a cave in fear?

How in the world did Lot have such a dysfunctional family?

How in the world 2 daughters come up with a scheme to get their father drunk so that they could sleep with him?

How in the world could Lot get so drunk that he didn’t know he was having a sexual relationship with his daughters?

How in the world did Lot end up in such a mess?

One word—choices.

—Something each of us has in common. Every single day... every single moment we make choices.

—What to eat. What to wear. What to say. What to do. How to act.

—You’ve made a thousand choices before you arrived here this morning!

—A choice to argue with your wife. A choice to yell at the kids. A choice to spend some time with the Lord in prayer. Choices.

The choices you make today are the ones you’re going to have to live with tomorrow.

No one ends up in the mess that Lot’s family found themselves in all at one time.

Over the years there was a bad choice here, a wrong decision there, and all of these have piled together to create a world of mess.—Choices.

Fortunately for us, the Bible has recorded some of the choices that Lot made over the years. As we look back through time, we will see that the choices he made yesterday are the one’s he’s living with today.

Look back just a couple of verses to Gen. 19:15.

Angels had come to him to warn him of the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Listen to the choices he made.

read vs. 15-17

In vs. 18-22 Lot argues with the angels and persuades them to allow Lot and his family to flee to the nearby city of Zoar instead of fleeing to the mountains.

Read vs. 23-26

Did you notice the choices he made?

vs. 16 "he hesitated"

What would make him hesitate? Why would he want to wait...

He hesitated because he wanted to stay.

His heart was still in Sodom. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to leave even though the angels warned him of the city’s coming destruction. As the leader of his family, his love for this sinful city was shared by his wife as well. The angels warned them to flee the city and not look back. But she couldn’t resist. As burning sulfur rained down from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife’s heart burned with desire for her wicked home. And though she was so close to God’s safety and deliverance, her ties to Sodom were too strong.

Vs. 26 "she looked back and became a pillar of salt"

How did they end up so attached to this sinful city?

How did Lot end up with a wife who would disobey the warnings of an angel?

How did they end up in this mess? Choices!

As we look back through time, we see that the choices he made yesterday are the one’s he’s living with today.

At the beginning of Ch. 19 we read in vs. 1

Read vs. 1

—Lot is sitting at the gate... which means that he had become an important member of Sodom. The ruling officials would take their place at the gate of the city.

—While he’s seated there, 2 angels arrive at Sodom and Lot welcomes them into his home and prepares a meal for them.

Listen to what happened as night fell over the city.

Read vs. 4-5

This was a sick and perverted city filled with wickedness.

—What kind of a city is it that would beat on the door of someone’s house demanding that they send out their guests so that this gang of men might rape them?

—What kind of city could be filled with such wicked men—from the oldest to the youngest—that they would sin so greatly against the Lord?

—Before we get too shocked by their city, what kind of a culture do we live in that demands we call two homosexuals living in sin a marriage

—Or a culture that calls the killing of a partially born child while it is still in a mother’s womb pro-choice

—Or glorifies pre-marital sex, and violence, and pornography on every television show, movie, and song that has come out lately?

Is America much different from this wicked city?

But as these evil men are pounding on Lot’s door, listen to the choice that he made in verse 6...

Read vs. 6-8

Has this man lost his mind?