The sermon explores the concept of salvation as depicted through biblical stories, particularly focusing on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This narrative emphasises faith, judgement, and God's grace. Abraham's intercessory prayer for Lot is used as an example of how faith and prayer play crucial roles in salvation of others. The sermon warns against complacency and the dangers of ignoring God's call, using Lot's wife as a poignant reminder of the consequences of looking back. It encourages the audience to embrace a full commitment to faith, akin to Abraham, and to be mindful of the generational impact of their spiritual lives. The key point is that salvation is not automatic but requires a responsive heart to God's grace and a willingness to separate from the world's values in the outworking of sanctification.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Now, I guess by the facts that if you're used to listening to sermons and hearing Bible studies that you'll be aware of the fact that the general message of the scriptures about salvation is often understood through images or stories throughout the scriptures. There are lots of times when we can pick up hints about what it is to be saved by a simple story. And the story of salvation or the teaching of salvation as something often that's dramatised by different events.

[00:00:36] You take, for example, Noah's Ark. The Bible itself even talks about the fact of the salvation of the eight or so souls, taught the people who came through the flood and who were alive after the flood was over by a value of the Ark, is a picture of salvation and salvation that we can apply to the general message of the scriptures as to how we can come to have that salvation, and of course, the episode of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah that's a picture of a volcanic thing that's happening and God is behind the scenes planning it because of the wickedness of the city, but there is one family there that has a relative!

[00:01:21] We'll start the story there in Chapter 18 of the book of Genesis about what is here given to us as part of the ingredients of what it is for someone to hear the message of salvation and get saved. We're going to pick it up in verse 16, let me just check you've got the same thing.

[00:01:43] Well verse 18, and okay now what this actually a preliminary part is about is that there was some visitation of angels to Abraham talking to him about his future and talking to him about what God wanted him to do, and these ones are called men at first and gradually Abraham discovers that they're not usual normal human beings, they disappear in the smoke of a fire, for example, so they're angels and they're coming in apparitions or they're coming in the appearance of humanity of humans. One of them even might be a special type of human or a special type of angel who knows, and we might comment on that a little bit later on.

[00:02:28] Then the men set out from there and they looked down towards Sodom. The mission that these angels who come on was the fact that they come to investigate and then to do a judgment seat on Sodom and Gomorrah because of their sinfulness. Now by the way, previously in our church teaching we've come to realise that sometimes the Bible calls that a visitation. When God visits either to investigate to see what's going on to get the evidence or to deliver a judgment often that can be called the Visitation.

[00:03:18] And Abraham went with them and set them on their way. The LORD said, "Now who is the LORD? We're not sure exactly whether this is the LORD of heaven, or one of these angels in fact is called the LORD. But anyway the LORD said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I'm about to do? Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed in him.'"

[00:03:43] Now there had been previous dealing of God with Abraham and the giving of promises that one day of his offspring would become a special salvation for the world. And so Abraham's also been promised things to do with the land and to do with the area which is now Israel, and to do with his offspring, becoming he is going to be the father of many nations.

[00:04:06] "Seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him." We understand these days that that promise to Abraham had to do with the most important of his offspring which is Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ, the mission and action that he had on earth was to bring about the possibility of salvation available to all humanity, not meaning that they're all being saved, but that all will have the opportunity to be saved if they'll hear the gospel and respond.

[00:04:38] "For I've chosen him that he may command his children and household after him, and to keep the way of the Lord doing righteousness and justice." It's now the reason why God has confidence in Abraham is that he's going to continue the line and teach his kids to follow the things that he's going to show them.

[00:04:56] And so there is a promise that's given to Abraham then the Lord said, "because of the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave. I'll go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me, and if not, I will know."

[00:05:14] So there is this preliminary background of there being a God in heaven and His holding humanity accountable for how they live, and not being prepared to put up with when they rebel against Him and act very sinfully, and indeed planning the judgement of those who are sinning.

[00:05:33] And so this is one of the first elements in understanding the Gospel story that is put into the drama of this scene that has to do with Lot and his wife.

[00:05:43] There is a God in heaven who holds humanity accountable for his behaviour and will judge if necessary. So we move on into the next section.

[00:05:54] And as God has said He will investigate, we are going to see that the angels came to Sodom, and as you're reading through the text you discover they're not just men. They're angels. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening and Lot, now he's a personality that is a relative of Abram, and Abram or Abraham and because he is a relative, Abraham has great concern for him and because they both increased in the numbers of cattle and sheep and whatever they've split and gone in different directions but Lot doesn't have the same deep faith that Abraham his relative does.

[00:06:36] And Abraham, or Abram I'm not sure what his name is at this juncture, is concerned to pray and to intercede and to be a person who wants for God to step in on Lot's behalf.

[00:06:50] And, but at this moment the angels are there and they're going to meet Lot and let's see what sort of personality Lot is. "And Lot saw them and he rose to meet them and he bowed himself to the face of the earth. This is doing normal, you know, reverence for strangers coming as was appropriate then. 'My lords, please turn aside to your servants house and spend the night and wash your feet and then may rise early and go on your way.'"

[00:07:19] Now this offer of hospitality was very much an eastern thing, it wasn't an abnormal for lot, though, to do. He used to spend his time at the city gate. He was understood of one of the elders of the city. As wicked as it was, he nonetheless had a place in it. And when these people come and he immediately jumps up and offers them hospitality, which was the Eastern thing to do, but he has an extra motive. The extra motive is that he knows how rotten are the people of his town that he represents as one of their elders. And he knows that it's dangerous for them to exist, if he doesn't get them lodging in a house.

[00:07:57] And they say, "No, we'll spend the night in the town square." But he pressed them strongly, he knows how dangerous it would be for them so to do because the town was full of people who turned to homosexuality in bulk, they were real vultures and they used to rape anybody who came and tried to just lie down and go to sleep overnight in the town square.

[00:08:19] So they turned aside to him, and they entered his house. He pressed them strongly. He had a concern for these visitors. He didn't probably know who they were at all, but he seeks to do his best now.

[00:08:33] Notice just how much his culture and his sense of right and wrong has been twisted by the living in that town. "And he said, 'I beg you, my brothers don't do so... don't act so wickedly.' Well, that's him standing up for righteousness for strangers, but what a funny choice he has.

[00:08:54] 'Behold, I have two daughters who have not grown, who have not known any man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do them as you please, only don't do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.'"

[00:09:13] Has rather twisted my opinion sense of values. That he's prepared not to keep safe his daughters and give them up to the crowd, they want to do some raping instead of taking these strangers. I find that incredible. And one of the things that we notice in the storyline is that we all have need for salvation that has a backdrop of the era that we live in, the community of which we are apart you know on the first Great Pentecostal Sermon when Peter preached and he spoke to the crowds he said "save yourselves from this wicked generation" and he spoke about the generation which headed by the Jews was ones that had accommodated themselves to the Romans but they really had a way of turning God away and when their Messiah arrived they didn't want Jesus to be proven to be the Messiah because they had control they had political leadership they had respect. They were prepared to get rid of Jesus rather than admit that perhaps He was the Messiah. He did all the signs that He was the Messiah by the miracles that He produced. But they were not wanting that to be recognised, and there's a sense in which the generation that crucified Jesus will have a judgment. They did indeed in the end have a judgment come upon them because of the wickedness of the generation they are in, and Peter now I need to know in the day of Pentecost when the time came for the first gospel message to be given and the call for people to be saved.

[00:10:50] The very message that is often given in storylines, such as the one we're looking at from Genesis, when that message comes one of the backdrops is the people of your era and a lot of the values they have which are not necessarily God's values and often we respond to the gospel in the first instance because it doesn't come in a way that is, politically, being very smart. If you were to go anywhere into ... I had someone telling me about the different universities and I hear the same stories these days. I have children who have been in our universities of Brisbane but I heard someone say of a university in another state about how difficult it was to be a Christian person and how the whole atmosphere of the teaching was so anti-Christians and anti-the biblical narrative of how God made men and women the whole business of this gender flexibility, and of how people not being necessarily having to live according to the morals of the Scriptures, and that is so hard pressed in that particular university that's very very difficult to be a Christian there, when you're bombarded by it all the time, to some degree that is how my kids have reported our universities here in Queensland.

[00:12:10] And so there is a case when the Gospel was first announced And that first occasion was by Peter in the day of Pentecost that he finished up with a call of for people to repent but a part of that call was to "save yourselves from this wicked generation" and that was also the case back there with Lot and the city that he had found a home that allowed himself to become a leader-in was one so wicked that some of their values of his times he had adopted that he give out his virgin daughters to be raped by the whole crowd, rather than not do the proper thing.

[00:12:47] A man who is elder at the gate and has visitors come, he called them lords. He could see they were important persons of some place and he wanted them to be safe in his house. Good motive about them, but he's got rotten values don't you think?

[00:13:03] "Well, the people of the town said, 'stand back! they said this fellow came comes to Sojourner talking about Lot, and he's become the judge. He had risen to a place of being like a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than will with them.'"

[00:13:20] "They pressed hard against the man Lot, and they drew near to break down the door by their pressure, as it were. But the men inside reached out their hands, and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. And they struck with blindness the people outside, the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so they wore themselves out. Groping for the door. A rather humorous touch because these are angels and they're just, shhh... and these men are all blind."

[00:13:54] "And the ones inside, the angels actually, the men said to Lot, 'Have anybody else here, sons-in-law, sons, daughters or anybody who haven't written in the city, bring them out of the place. For we're about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become very before the Lord.'"

[00:14:12] And so they see these men; they grabbed a hold of Lot and his wife. And they're going to make them come out of the city. And so we know, we recognise here that salvation is something that God is about doing to people but why is it that God is here to save the house of Lot? Because of the prayers of a relative, Abraham, who has acceptance with the God of heaven who has been praying. I jumped over a part, you can read when you get home, of how Abraham begins to bargain almost with God, saying, "Lord, shall not the Judge of all the earth do just? How come you're going to destroy some good people down there in that city lot?" and that city of Sodom, and he's referring to his relative. And he says, "Lord, if for the sake of so many would you save it?" and God says yes, and then he keeps lessening the number, "What about just even if there is less than that, say 20 instead of 10." God keeps saying yes, and he gets right down to a small number, and the Lord promises yes, if that small number are actually present there, and relatively speaking righteous, then for their sake, I won't judge the city.

[00:15:24] And, the LORD is willing to answer the prayers of Abraham, but because God is planning the judgement of the bigger number, he said he has sent those men, really the angels, to come and rescue Lot and his nother family. Now, I want to tell you something I have discovered as an itinerant evangelist around the place in my earlier days. I discovered that when someone came to Christ and you got to talk to them, and maybe in counselling or then afterwards you got to know them a bit, something that you nearly always found, not necessarily every case, but often heard, was, as I said, "Well, you know, I've got an aunt who is a Christian; she keeps telling me she's praying for me," or "I've had parents, and they used to tell me all these things you're telling me today, and I didn't bother listening, but I know they've been praying for me." And I discovered that when you have someone that comes to Christ, more cases than not, they will tell you about there being some person behind the scenes or some family who have been praying across the years, and there is a power in prayer and God is in the business of listening to people who have relatives and you pray for them. Even though nothing may happen for 10-15 years, none the less, those prayers are heard, and God is not a God who forgets. He is someone who answers prayer, and I want to say that if you are here tonight and you have never really been secure and not being inflamed, that he is really knowing Christ and being sure that you belong to him and you have been forgiven, I want to tell you that there may well be someone still praying for you. And those prayers are part of why you're listening right now because it's the story of Lot, where he's been the subject of the prayers of Abraham, and those prayers of Abraham with the messengers that were sent, and with those angels, one of whom I think was the very pre-incarnate Christ before he took on human body, but he's the eternal son of God. I won't go into the reasons why I think that, but let me just say that because Abraham's been talking to him about his relatives, this whole scene has come about. How do you know where isn't another story to be told about how if you come to Christ tonight and make sure of your salvation, that's not the answer to the prayers that are given behind the scenes. Well anyway, what happens next? OK, so they grab a hold of these two and they tell them to go and get their sons-in-law, in actual fact the sons-in-law were sent out to eventually marry the daughters.

[00:18:12] The way the marriages happened back then, sometimes it would be a 3-step, we won't go into that, but these ones were to marry the two daughters that were that were almost offered to the crowd to rape. "'Up get out of this place for the Lord is about to destroy the City,' Lot went and told them. But look at this, he seems to his sons-in-law to be joking or jesting technicalities." And one of the sad things you recognise in the story line, that Lot had been completely unable to be any influence on even his daughter's fiancés.

[00:18:51] That his power over his own children was not very successful. Now why is it the case that the kids didn't listen to Father Lot? The reason was he was one big compromise himself. And he's made himself an elder in the city. Don't you think those young people saw all the misbehaviour and the rottenness of the morals of that town all the men who'd come out and try and rape any stranger who came through? What sort of place was that for Dad to come and take you to?

[00:19:28] I think it's because he had no respect left because of his own compromise in being in that place. When the kids see the parents prepared to live out their ethic of trusting God, when you have a father or a relative, I think Abraham is an uncle, or what, he's a lot, when you have someone with such a strong example that you don't follow suit, then your family would have surely seen the difference between Abraham and Lot.

[00:20:03] And he didn't generate any people following his line of worship, he might have believed in God. But the kids were not really believing and so when he tells them that the angels have come to threaten the destruction of the city they just thought he's joking. They don't go. They're lost. "At morning dawn the angels urged Lot saying, 'Get up and take your wife and your two daughters who are here. Lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.'"

[00:20:36] Now I want to say this evening that salvation, that Jesus offers through His Gospel is something that you can be so close to, you can be so close to, but for some stupid reason to do with your desires for sinful things, or your desire for popularity, or for your wanting to get ahead with your career.

[00:20:59] Lot probably enjoyed being one of the elders at the gates, he was an important person. But who wants to be an important person in a city, set to be destroyed? He was a fool, and he lost the following of his own family.

[00:21:16] "As morning dawned, the angels urged, like, 'take your wife and two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away, in the punishment of the city.'" And the lesson for us to learn about salvation is to see our families and know that our number one priority is to make sure they don't get swept away with the judgment of God upon this generation. And the way you can ensure that is that you give yourself to follow the Lord in a way that is an example that they all respect, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city. "But he lingered, so the men seized him." Now I find it interesting in this particular case that they save him against his will almost, because he wants to hang around with those sons, and daughters, and Laura, those daughters, and sons, and Laura. But they take him by the hand, and his wife, and the two single girls, and they drag them out. And there are people, you know, that you meet, who tell the story when you ask them, how did you come to Christ? And they sometimes have a bit of a story. "Well, I really wasn't getting terribly persuaded. I didn't really know where that would take me if I chose to be a Christian. But then suddenly, and I'll tell of some episode where something happened, that God stepped in. I've had a man tell me of how he had a car crash, and he's a Christian man, and dangling upside down, He unplugged his seat belt and said, 'okay, God's the thing that he'd been arguing with God about. God can, at time, step in and I don't know why it is sometimes He steps in with one person, and other people He leaves to have the results of their lingering.

[00:22:58] In this case, the lingering of Lot is not so severe that he will be lost because the angels are grabbing by the hand and his wife. And they yank them out of the city. God sometimes does that, and I can't answer why He does more yanking or more grabbing without you having a choice with some people than others."

[00:23:21] "Oh, that's what the illustration incident shows us. And so escape to the hills lest you be swept away. And Lot said to him, 'Oh my lords not behold your servant has found favour in your sight. And you've shown me great kindness and saving my life about to be so done. I cannot escape to the hills,' and there he has an excuse for not doing where they wanted him to go. 'Let me go to this little city nearby,' he's so much in love with being an important person in the city, at least in the little one, he could be a big man in the city at the gate. 'Therefore I, you know, please don't over throw the city, will you give me this boon, will you give me this promise.'"

[00:24:12] And the angels say "okay, escape there quickly before we can do nothing or I can do nothing till you arrive there," they're from the name of the city was called Zoar and so they let him go to the city. What that represents is... the sort of salvation that he's prepared to accept is one of those minimal versions. You know, something I'm always absolutely amazed at has... when I was an itinerant of going around from church to church, was how many times you met churchpeople who probably have gotten in the door with Christ. But they have had a decision point when they came to Jesus. But the type of Christianity that they sort of got saved into was the minimal one. Didn't ask too much of them.

[00:24:57] And there are some who do come to Christ, saying, "yes, I'm prepared to admit I'm a sinner and I want Jesus as a Saviour." But then they want to run their own life and still chase the same worldly goals. A very stupid thing to do is to be a person that says to God, "I want the minimal version of salvation."

[00:25:17] If I go to buy a meal and someone says "well you can have a bit of a pizza but this is a bit of an old crusty one here, you can have the minimal one you'll pay a bit less." I don't go to that shop again. If I go to buy a pizza I want one that's got plenty of stuff stacked up on it, I want the full measure.

[00:25:36] Don't be a stupid person that is prepared to bargain with God so you can get in the door and still hang on to the precious things that you think are important to you. Be someone who goes the whole hog. Someone that comes to Christ and says, "all right, I'm all in."

[00:25:53] Be like Peter who said to Jesus when Jesus said, "you'll have got to let me wash your feet. You won't have anything to do with me." Then Peter says, "then wash my face as well." He was a whole-hogger person. That's the one thing I love about Peter and the storylines of him. It's Peter didn't do things by halves, when Jesus walks on the water and comes to them and says "it's me, don't be afraid." Peter says "well if it's really you, he wants to test it, ask Me to come and walk on the water." Jesus says, "come." And Peter steps out of the boat, and the miracle happens for a little bit anyway. So he walks on the water to Jesus. Be like Peter.

[00:26:35] To go whole hog with Jesus. Don't make special little agreements, "oh well I will become a Christian, but don't make it that I have to get provisioned, or don't make it that I have to sort of do something too embarrassing, or let me be someone that's a Christian, so I'm saved to go to heaven. But when I go to school or university I'm not going to say too much and get persecuted by the people who don't think that way." That's being a little hog. I don't know how to word it. But it's being someone who doesn't go the whole hog, only gets a type of salvation that's the minimal thing is what happens to a silly old Lot. He wants to still go to a city.

[00:27:13] Well anyway, the angel agrees with this and so they tell them that they need to go but they give one further thing I'm not sure whether I haven't glossed over it but he says to them the angel there's he says "but don't look back go now."

[00:27:30] But don't look back and sales we read on from verse 24 "For then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulphur and fire, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground, they all got destroyed. But Lot's wife behind him, the picture is that the angels got the hand of Lot and they are marching him out and the wife is coming behind, she might be holding onto his shirt or she's walking one step behind, but as she's coming out of the city, where's her heart?"

[00:28:13] We're not told any of this, we can only conjecture, but she's got a group of friends or she has a scenario where she's come to some accommodation with all these people living in Sodom. And as they're going out, verse 26, "but Lot's wife behind him looked back" and the angel has said "don't look back," and at that moment one of those volcanic bombs that comes landed on her and she became in a moment, frizzled of course, a pillar of salt.

[00:28:47] One can be very close to becoming saved and still end up totally lost, because in their hearts they're turning around and looking back at what they should have repented from and just left.

[00:29:08] She looked behind her and she became a pillar of salt elsewhere in the Scriptures, just a simple statement comes out. Lot's life. It's talking about the fact that although salvation is something God does and it's by His grace, God's sovereignty is involved in doing it. I can't explain it all I believe in election. I can't put it together that nonetheless in the call to come to Christ there's always a moment where the people's attitudes make a difference. And in this image, in this storyline that represents a drama that is a metaphor of salvation. Lot's wife is singled out elsewhere in the Scriptures as something to remind us that you can be almost saved, but then you look back at what you're paying the costs. Maybe it's popularity, maybe it's a pet career you've always kept for yourself but never surrendered to God. Maybe there's a group of friends that you want to keep in with and you look back and you hesitate when the moment comes and you become lost.

[00:30:20] Now I know there are some mysteries about how often God calls and for how long He goes on. I know that He's very gracious to call and to call again. But there is a limit to how long God will call upon a people or a person and have them resist it before there comes some unknown to us line where it becomes too late.

[00:30:45] You say, "Jim that's a rather harsh doctrine to hold to yourself." I'm doing it because of Jesus and what He said to Jerusalem. For He was the promised one to be the blessing, the eventual child of offspring of Abraham that would bring salvation to many people and He was going to be the salvation for Israel, He will I believe, one day. But when Jesus came and was demonstrated as the Messiah and the miracles that He did and the speeches that He gave and the way the God vindicated Him again and again, it showed Him to be the Messiah, that there was a generation, particularly the leaders, but also many of the people, who saw the evidence, and deep in their hearts, knew that He really was when Jesus tells the story of the man who sent his son to collect some of the grapes from the vineyards. But the vineyard leaders say to themselves, "look this is the Son. Let's kill him and we get the vineyard." And there is the possibility even to Jesus' own generation that He came to them to be their Messiah and they in the deepest part of their hearts knew He really was. Though in their conscious minds they are thinking up all the reasons why He's not. But Jesus says that it's too late because you missed the moment of your visitation. You turned it down and in the living version it says "eternal peace was within your reach but you turned it down and now it is too late" and He went on to speak about the promise of the coming Romans who are going to destroy the city and many people will be killed.

[00:32:42] So it's possible to be very close to salvation and still to miss it and the moment of her missing it is when she turned around and looked back at what she might lose and she became a pillar of salt.

[00:32:59] Well the story line goes on and I'm not going to labour it anymore but Abraham went early in the morning to the place and he stood before the Lord. This is Abraham. Now the one who'd been praying. He looked down towards Sodom and he saw Sodom and Gomorrah and it's all the land, the valley and he looked and behold the smoke of the land came up like the smoke of a furnace. It was the god when he destroyed the cities of the valley God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

[00:33:32] Well I could go on further just to look at what Lot's life was like later when he lived in the cave, but that should can be reserved for another story. But in all the various times, where in the Bible you find there are pictures of salvation, whether it be Jesus coming and and healing somebody, or whether it be Jesus coming to the town we grew up in, and the Bible saying he couldn't do many miracles there because of their unbelief, they said they knew him too well, he was one of us, why should we give him all the respect. What I understand by all of those illustrations is that salvation is not something you better count on as being automatic, and it'll happen whether you like it or not. I want to tell you that you can look back and lose it at the last moment.

[00:34:21] Let's pray. "Heavenly Father we thank You for the storyline Lord there are a lot of places, Lord where there are events in the Bible that are pictures of salvation, and this one here's a drastic one. And father what's drastic in my mind and makes my heart quiver is how close some of the members of Lot's family came. If only they had had more respect for the prayers of their relative Abraham! If only they had have learned more from parents who didn't somehow get across much teaching about their own heritage. What a pity there are families, father, who never get saved because the parents were too busy with their careers. They were Christians but they didn't pass on anything followable by the next generation.

[00:35:19] Help us to be deeper than that Father, help us Father to tell our young ones and to help them to know what it is to be saved and so to make the message clear that they won't be like those sons in the law to be. Lord that they won't be ones who think it's all just a joke, help us to be those who Lord do better than that, help us to listen to Peter's pentecostal advice, "save yourselves from this wicked generation." In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.