Sometimes people just push the Lord too far. And this time it is the people of Sodom, a city on the plains of Jordan near the Dead Sea. Do we all remember the story of this town Sodom? Abraham leaves his home after making a covenant with God in chapter 12. He settles in the hills of Canaan, but his nephew Lot chooses Sodom as his home. This turned out to be a bad choice by Lot, since as Genesis 13:13 tells us “the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly.” Not a good place to raise a family.
So in Chapter 18 of Genesis, Abraham discovers that God is going to wipe out these cities. Abraham pleads for the cities and tries to bargain with God. You remember this right? Abraham starts high and works his way down. He interceded for the righteous of the city. He asks God to spare the righteous people. God agrees that if He can find 50 righteous people in the city that He would spare the whole city. It then becomes sadly humorous as Abraham begins to barter the number down. He asks for 45, then 40, 30, 20 and finally 10. Ten righteous people in this city would have saved the whole town. And Abraham knew his nephew and family were in that city.
And then chapter 19 one of the most vivid stories of the whole Bible. The angels that had just been with Abraham go into Sodom and meet Lot. The visitors are dining with Lot when the men of Sodom circle the house and demand to have these visitors. The men cry out that they want to get to know these men. You know how they wanted to get to know them. Lot instead offers his daughters – as any loving father would(?). So the angels blind the men and warn Lot that the city was going to be destroyed and to get himself and his family out of Dodge. And we read the rest. What a story!
You know you just have to really appreciate the blatant straight-forwardness of the Old Testament. This is such a lovely story. (Sarcasm) This may not be the most beautiful story in the Bible but it does offer many good lessons that we can all learn. While I am sure that I could give a wonderful sermon about the sinfulness of Sodom and Gomorra, I would like to concentrate more on Lot and his family today. Lot and his wife serve as great examples as persons who really know how to ruin their lives. So let’s explore how they did that.
First way to ruin our lives is to believe sin will go unpunished.
In verse 15, we read that the angels have warned Lot of the punishment to the city.
And we don’t have to Biblical scholars to know and understand that these cities were not very righteous cities. We see some of the immorality of this city in this chapter – the sexual immoralities. While we cannot down play the significance of the sexual immoralities here we should note that the Bible explains other iniquities of Sodom.
Leave your finger in Genesis chapter 19 but turn your Bibles to Ezekiel 16:49. Here we can read about more iniquities of this city. What were they? Let’s read.
"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."
You see Sodom and Gomorra were not very reverent places to live. They were involved in all kinds of wickedness. Abraham knew this, as we already discovered in chapter 18. He pleaded with God to bring down the number of righteous people in the city God needed to find. Only 10!
Abraham not only knew this from the events in chapter 18 but also knew it from an earlier experience with the city. Abraham refused to accept a well-deserved reward from the government of Sodom, as we can read in chapter 14 of Genesis. Abraham wanted nothing to do with this city. Not even accept a reward from them.
But Lot stayed. Lot chooses a life of wealth and prosperity. He became someone important in this city. As we can read in verse 1 of chapter 19 we see that Lot is at the city gates. And only the city officials sat at the city gates.
And we have every reason to believe that Lot knew that Sodom and Gomorra were sinful cities, after all he did recognize these angels as being from God and followed their command. Therefore, he must have known something about the Lord and the Lord’s righteousness. Because he could have chosen to ignore their commands or send away these visitors.
This is the second way to ruin your life: Ignore the Holy in Your Life.
You see we cannot afford to ignore the presence of God in our lives. Here we see Lot doing this. While Lot did accept the visitors and must have recognized the holiness of them, Lot later ignores them. Lot is forewarned of the dangers of staying. And as we look at verse 15 again we see that the Angels urge Lot along. Lot so ignored the message that as we read in verse 16 these visitors had to take Lot and his family by the hand and lead them to protection.
As we encounter God, in any form through any kinds of workings of the Holy Spirit, we need to respond to it. When God calls us we cannot afford to ignore Him. Jonah is a perfect example of what happens when we ignore God. Jonah was so caught up in ignoring the Holy in his life that he ended up in the belly of a fish. Jonah learned the hard way that ignoring the Holy in your life can ruin your life. Lot had to be taken by the hand, Jonah had to be swallowed by a giant fish, what does God have to do to get your attention? Those of us who are Christians I hope that we experience God’s call upon us daily. And I hope we faithfully respond to what is Holy in our lives.
But one way that we end up ignoring the Holy in our lives and the third way that we ruin our lives is to live life at our own pace.
When the Holy does invade our lives and God gives us a command we had better listen and do what He has said. You see Lot is warned but goes about his business and nearly stays to long. Look again at verse 15. “With the Coming of dawn the angels said hurry.” When did the angels say this? Early, at the first break of dawn. What did they say? They said hurry up! The Hebrew word here for hurry is “koom.” This translates also to arise but it implies a sense of urgency. Arise. We are not sure if Lot is sleeping (I doubt I could fall asleep!) but after hearing the town was going to be destroyed you have to wonder what Lot was waiting for!?!
You see when God calls we should do what He has called us to do when he decides we should do it. And we should do it in a hurry. We do everything else in a hurry, fast cars, fast food, fast banking, fast mail delivery, fast everything. Everything else in our lives we want it done fast. Sure there are things we put off, like changing the litter box or deciding what’s for dinner. But when God calls … unless we want to ruin our lives we cannot afford to live life at our pace.
In verse 16 we read Lot hesitated, he lingered. He drug his feet. Again what was he waiting on? Perhaps he could not decide what he wanted to do. Perhaps, Lot started to think about all the stuff he was going to have to leave behind. After all, Lot was a man of power and wealth, moving to another city would mean he would have to start all over. He was a man who made important decisions in Sodom, in some other city he would be a nobody. So he lingered.
You see this is another way to ruin your lives: Only make partial commitments.
We have to ask ourselves if we are really committed to this. Are we committed or do we just believe? This is an interesting question for us. It is not enough to believe! You have to make a commitment.
Affirming the truths of the Christian faith is not enough. A commitment must be made. Believing is not enough. If I only believed in my marriage and was not commitment to it, it would fail. Even if I only made a partial commitment to my marriage it would fail. Both people in a marriage must be fully committed to make it successful. And as we enter into a relationship with God we must be fully committed to it. We all know that God is committed, it is by His grace we are saved. So the question is “are we”? So if you want to ruin your life make partial commitments. Linger, hesitate about making a commitment with God.
And the final way we see to mess up our lives is the lesson that Lot’s wife teaches us. If we want to ruin our lives we can turn our eyes toward truth, but keep looking back.
Look at verse 26.
Lot and his family found it hard to leave their home. They were warned not to look back. And there were consequences to looking back. You see if we don’t look back, we can only look forward. We can look forward to the truth of God’s promises, the truth of God’s grace, the truth of Jesus Christ. You cannot take your eyes off Christ. If you make a commitment, fully, you cannot look back.
Personally, I have no regrets about choosing a life dedicated to God’s call. Seminary costs the same amount of money as law school. I could have chosen law school and made the big bucks once I graduated. I could have worked my way up in the newspaper business that I was working in before I came here to minister to this church. But really I don’t look back and say “What if …” I am committed fully to what God has called me to do and I have no regrets. I chose life. I don’t want to end up in the belly of a great fish, or a pillar of salt, or any other way God will deal with me not following His calling.
Lot’s wife became a symbol of indecision. Jesus urged His followers to remember the example she set. Luke 17:32 and 33 says “Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.”
Look forward and preserve your life, look back and lose it.
And to make this story even more sad, not only did Lot’s wife lose her life from looking back, so did Lot. As we read on in this chapter Lot must have still had strong feelings about what he left behind. He and his daughters moved out of the city of Zoar and went to live in the caves. There his daughters got him drunk and got pregnant by him. It is almost as if they felt they had nothing else to live for. Looking back may not have killed him but it did cost him his life.
The not so good news about this story: God will judge us more harshly. Turn your Bibles to Matthew 11:24. Let’s read that.
“But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."
Jesus did not let His followers think of Sodom simply as “those terrible sinners.” Jesus warned his followers that, in fact, God would be even harder on those that saw Him but ignored Him. God would be even harder on those who believed sin would go unpunished. God is going to judge those who make only partial commitments, those that live life on their own time and those that keep looking back, even harder. Judgment will be even harder for those who will ruin their lives here on earth and turn away from Jesus. Friends, our judgment will be harsher than the judgment on Sodom and Gomorra because we know of Jesus.
But there is good news. If you want to preserve your life turn your eyes to Jesus. Do more than believe … commit! Commit to His calling and you will be saved.
