Sin City Series

Transition

This morning we will look at what is likely a fairly familiar passage of Scripture for most of us. At the very least, the general themes of the account of God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah are familiar to us.

The fire and brimstone of this narrative are a part of our colloquialism in American religious and secular social life. The account of Lot’s wife becoming a pillar of salt is familiar to most of us.

When expositing the contents of any narrative account from the Old Testament it is easy to force moral applications upon the Bible. While it is often the case that the moral teaching forced onto the narrative contains moral teaching which is found in the Bible, the most honest exegesis (interpretation method) of the Bible is to allow the passage of Scripture being handled to speak for itself. Because of our general familiarity with the story it is easy to miss what is in the text.

As we move ahead in our discussion of Genesis 19 I would encourage you to set aside preconceived ideas what the account of Sodom and Gomorrah means.

Set aside thoughts from other sermons you have heard or studies you have been in.

Let us zero in on the text alone and see what it says in its own historical context and how that applies for us today.

Exposition

I have already alluded to what I believe to be the highest principal contained in this account. To look blindly upon sin causes us to grow callous to its true character. When our eyes are inundated with the sight of injustice and sin it has a cruel desensitizing affect.

Speaking of the believers who will be deceived by the sin and lies of the culture around them, the Apostle Paul describes this desensitizing affect this way: “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (I Timothy 4:2 KJV)

When we take in all of the junk of the world around us it affects us. It changes us. It pulls us away from God. It brings our mind into conformity with the world rather than conformity to Christ and the word of God.

Looking constantly upon the injustice and sin of the world dims our understanding of God’s holiness and diminishes our ability to properly interpret the world through the lens of God’s word. Inundation with injustice and sin is spiritually blinding.

As we examine the account of God’s destruction of Sodom and the salvation of Lot we find numerous examples of the way in which acceptance, tolerance, to injustice leads to spiritual blindness. As we will see, there are many examples of such blindness in the text.

The account begins with two angels arriving at the city gate of Sodom in the evening. It is no surprise that the angels find Lot at the city gate. The city gate in ancient cities served something like a town square in modern times.

People would conduct business at the city gate. They would receive travelers and conduct other affairs. These are the types of things in the Bible which lend a great deal of weight to the historical reliability of the narrative, the stories, of the Bible.