SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Mana Church Stafford Podcast, where we're all about equipping God's people to change their world.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful you're here, and we're praying that this message encourages you to love God, love others, and love the world more fervently than before.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's get to it.
SPEAKER_01: Where, you know, we're talking about how we use the Bible, and sometimes we filter things out to make it taste better.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're if you're a Gen X person, we we drank straight from the hose.
SPEAKER_01: You know, we didn't use the Brita filters, and I thought I think it tasted pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: But nowadays we we filter everything out.
SPEAKER_01: Last week, Yeom, he he shared with us the story of Noah, and and you know, we we share this cutesy kind of a narrative with cartoon creatures, and we don't talk about the destruction that happened during the flood.
SPEAKER_01: The entire population of the earth, save eight people, died.
SPEAKER_01: We filter that part out.
SPEAKER_01: Jeremy, the first week, he did an awesome job kicking off this series by talking about this brazen and unrighteous act of a man named Zimri, who was so morally numb that it didn't even matter to him that thousands of people, 24,000 to be exact, 24,000 people of his countrymen were dying from a plague by God because of some of these unrighteous acts.
SPEAKER_01: He just decided to continue to do the same act in front of all them, and then we have Phineas who comes and decides to enact swift and severe judgment on him.
SPEAKER_01: I encourage you to go back and listen to that sermon or read that story.
SPEAKER_01: But both of these stories that have been shared, they're hard ones.
SPEAKER_01: They don't taste super good when you read them.
SPEAKER_01: So what we do is we filter them out before we consume them, before we actually put them in our soul.
SPEAKER_01: And it's difficult because it's hard for us sometimes to conceive of a time or a situation where such dramatic action by God would be justified.
SPEAKER_01: When would it be justified for God to kill everybody on the planet?
SPEAKER_01: When would it be justified for a priest of God to literally stab two people while they're in the midst of an act?
SPEAKER_01: When would that be okay?
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, our moral compass and our moral code is oriented one way, and when we read the word, sometimes we think, well, this feels like it's oriented another way.
SPEAKER_01: I would love to suggest to us that when we find that our moral compass and God's are out of alignment, it's not because he's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: So what I would love to do is just kind of bring us back in.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this series is about is aligning us with some of the things that God thinks and sees.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's got a different perspective than us on a lot of things.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna do another story today.
SPEAKER_01: It's a really challenging one.
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's one that you guys might know some about, but but I think that there's gonna be some details that get shared towards the end.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to stick with me that might surprise you because you think you know the story until you really get into it.
SPEAKER_01: And it starts with a visitation, a visitation by God in the form of three persons.
SPEAKER_01: Um, two of them are angels that appear as men.
SPEAKER_01: And they visit a guy named Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: If you know the Bible, you know who Abraham is.
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: He's he's resting at the entrance of his tent in a grove of oak trees, a place called Mamre.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he's a special guy.
SPEAKER_01: Just prior to this, God has sort of ratified a covenant, a contract with him and said, I'm gonna bless the whole world through your descendants.
SPEAKER_01: So he's a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham and God, they're tight.
SPEAKER_01: They're super tight, all right?
SPEAKER_01: They're bros.
SPEAKER_01: And God's visit to him, though, it's not really about Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: It's about something else.
SPEAKER_01: It's about a nearby town.
SPEAKER_01: It's a town most of the people in this room, most of the people in the world now have even heard of, but you've never been to.
SPEAKER_01: It's a town called Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: Sister city was Gomorrah, and God is visiting to investigate the prayers that have reached heaven because of the wickedness in these cities and the region around it.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're gonna pick up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're gonna pick up here in our narrative, Genesis chapter 18.
SPEAKER_01: If you guys have Bibles, you can open them, or you can look at the Sky Bible, it's gonna be up there.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it says it says, The Lord said, again, there's three people there.
SPEAKER_01: One of them is the Lord, two of them are angels.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, son.
SPEAKER_01: Um, the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me.
SPEAKER_01: And if not, I'll know.
SPEAKER_01: So, what God's about to do to this region, it is drastic.
SPEAKER_01: It's the nuclear option, okay?
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be it's gonna be really bad.
SPEAKER_01: Um He doesn't talk about it here explicitly, but what we can see from the rest of the dialogue and what Abraham understands is that God's actually gonna wipe the cities out completely.
SPEAKER_01: Uh importantly, though, he's not judging from afar.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming down in person.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming down to see what's actually happening.
SPEAKER_01: God knows everything, but he's given them an opportunity to either prove their guilt or prove their innocence in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 22, it says, The men, the two, turned from there and went towards Sodom, but Abram stood before the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So Abram's here with the Lord, two angels go to the city of Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's interesting that that two leave, um, just a quick sidebar here.
SPEAKER_01: Um, in the word, the Lord will teach his people later that you can't give someone a sentence, let alone a death sentence, except by the witness of two or more people.
SPEAKER_01: And so he's sending two angels to the city to get eyewitness examples before he indicts them fully and judges them.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can appreciate this story because I can relate to at least three of the people in this.
SPEAKER_01: And I think all of us here can probably relate to these three people.
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the perspective I'd love to share it from.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the Bible is not about us, but the Bible is for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so as I read this, this story isn't about me, but there are people in here that I'm like, ooh, that's for me.
SPEAKER_01: I can I can feel that.
SPEAKER_01: So just let the Holy Spirit kind of speak to you in some of these moments and see which one of these are for you.
SPEAKER_01: So, Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: I can relate to him.
SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
SPEAKER_01: It says Abraham drew near, and he said, Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
SPEAKER_01: So suppose there's 50 righteous in the city.
SPEAKER_01: So the significant of his the significance of his request here, he's saying, like, if there are 50 in the city, are you gonna do it?
SPEAKER_01: Now, if there were only a hundred people in the city, 50 people would be like half the city, right?
SPEAKER_01: If there are 50 people in a city like DC where there's millions, that's just a drop in a bucket.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So it all depends on how big the city is.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know, we don't get that from the narrative, but archaeologists and historians that have studied this, they find that around that time, big, big areas were about a thousand people.
SPEAKER_01: So for you math wizards out there, 50 people out of a thousand is five percent.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody said it.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, if there's five percent of the city that's righteous, are you gonna are you gonna destroy him?
SPEAKER_01: And Abraham's perspective on this, again, let's look at this through his lens.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he's thinking: he's like, mercy, please.
SPEAKER_01: God, can you have mercy?
SPEAKER_01: Like, I see people that are dealing with all kinds of stuff in the world, and I'm like, Lord, uh, man, I know your judgment is close.
SPEAKER_01: Can you please have mercy on them?
SPEAKER_01: Can you please not bring judgment that I know is imminent?
SPEAKER_01: Can you just withhold it for a little bit?
SPEAKER_01: What if maybe you just give them one more chance?
SPEAKER_01: You maybe have a son or a daughter or a best friend, they're living a life that's on the fringes of evil.
SPEAKER_01: We all have those people, right?
SPEAKER_01: You have your one, I have my one.
SPEAKER_01: And you're hoping for the best.
SPEAKER_01: That maybe they've been a positive influence around the people that they are and not the other way around.
SPEAKER_01: That the stories you hear, like, no, I heard that story, but my person, they were there, but they really weren't a part of it.
SPEAKER_01: Like they're gonna be the righteous one in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_01: You're hoping for that.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what Abraham is like, man, maybe there's there's 50 in the city still.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Will you then sweep away the place and not spare for 50 righteous who are in it?
SPEAKER_01: Far be it from you to do such a thing.
SPEAKER_01: He's challenging God on God's, these he's trying to align these two compasses.
SPEAKER_01: Like, Lord, my morality's over here, yours is here.
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's no way you're gonna do this, right?
SPEAKER_01: Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked, far be it from you.
SPEAKER_01: Shall not the judge of all the earth do what is just?
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord says, without justifying himself, if I find fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.
SPEAKER_01: What we see happening next is this negotiation between Abraham and God.
SPEAKER_01: He just keeps kind of lowering.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, hey Lord, um, okay, so let's say that there's five that are lacking out of the 50.
SPEAKER_01: Will you spare it for them?
SPEAKER_01: He's like, if I find five lacking, I'll still spare it.
SPEAKER_01: He keeps, he's like, okay, well, just let me go one more time, God.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, like I know you're God and I'm not, but um, I'm trying to get these get these a little bit closer.
SPEAKER_01: If if there's like 20, and he gets it all the way down to 10 people, and then he stops asking God.
SPEAKER_01: He gets it down to 1%.
SPEAKER_01: If if 1% of the city follows God, will you spare it?
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, sure.
SPEAKER_01: 1% deal.
SPEAKER_01: And then we pick up in the next chapter.
SPEAKER_01: The two angels came to Sodom in the evening.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna investigate this in person.
SPEAKER_01: Lot, another person we haven't talked about yet, he's sitting in the gate of Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: So this other person that I can relate to in the story is Lot.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't know him, he's Abraham's nephew, um, pretty wealthy guy in his own right, about 20 to 25 years before this narrative, he and his his uncle Abe, you know, they're kind of living together, they're both doing really, really well.
SPEAKER_01: And um it gets to a point where Lot feels like he needs to branch out on his own.
SPEAKER_01: So Abraham's like, that's cool.
SPEAKER_01: You pick whatever, the whole plane is before you.
SPEAKER_01: Pick wherever you want to go.
SPEAKER_01: Lot looks around.
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's 25 years before this, 20, 25 years, and he's like, Sodom looks pretty good.
SPEAKER_01: It looks like it's pretty wealthy, it's pretty affluent, it's lush, a lot of opportunities there.
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm gonna go there.
SPEAKER_01: And Abraham's like, Cool, wherever you go, I'll make sure that I don't encroach on your territory because we got herds and everything else.
SPEAKER_01: It's cool.
SPEAKER_01: So he picks that.
SPEAKER_01: So now, now that that's how Lot gets there.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're back 25 years in the future.
SPEAKER_01: God's investigating.
SPEAKER_01: Lot is sitting at the gate of the entrance of the city, sees these two angels, recognizes them for who they are.
SPEAKER_01: When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and he bowed himself with his face to the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, My lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash your feet.
SPEAKER_01: Then you may rise up early and go on your way.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, No, we'll spend the night in the town square.
SPEAKER_01: Hospitality in Eastern culture is a big thing.
SPEAKER_01: When you invite somebody into your home, you see it in the New Testament as well.
SPEAKER_01: Inviting somebody into your home is like bringing them under your protection, and he knows they need protection.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, Come under my roof, let me protect you.
SPEAKER_01: They say, No, we're gonna spend the night in a town square.
SPEAKER_01: But he pressed them strongly.
SPEAKER_01: He's been there for 25 years, he knows what it's like.
SPEAKER_01: So they turned aside and entered his house, and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.
SPEAKER_01: Lot, another person I can relate to.
SPEAKER_01: I think you could probably relate to Lot as well, at least to some degree.
SPEAKER_01: He's clearly an outsider, so he's sitting by the city gate.
SPEAKER_01: People recognize him as a sojourner, not somebody who really belongs.
SPEAKER_01: He's among them, but he's not one of them.
SPEAKER_01: And you don't get this from the story, you have to read other places in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: But Lot actually, it says he was tormented daily, he was vexed daily by the evil in the city.
SPEAKER_01: He saw everything that was happening and it tore him up inside.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's bad stuff going on in this city.
SPEAKER_01: Bad enough gods coming down in person.
SPEAKER_01: Thing is, though, Lot got drawn into that.
SPEAKER_01: He used to live with Uncle Abraham, but he decided he wanted to go out on his own.
SPEAKER_01: He found the most flashy place he could go, Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: He gets there, and things are not necessarily what he expects.
SPEAKER_01: Again, maybe maybe you see this in your own life.
SPEAKER_01: You get sold a bill of goods on a life choice, you make it, and then you're like, oh, buyer's remorse.
SPEAKER_01: I got baited and switched.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you go to a restaurant and you hear it's great, and you're like, they were lying, this is terrible.
SPEAKER_01: The Yelp reviews for your vacation spot were not actually the real pictures.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you got catfished.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes this happens in relationships.
SPEAKER_01: You you develop a friend group and you think, like, hey, these are my people.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get in with them, you're like, we are not the same.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have the same values.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, sometimes this actually happens in marriages too.
SPEAKER_01: It's rough.
SPEAKER_01: You get into the relationship and you're like, oh my goodness, I've made a lifelong commitment and I didn't really know what I was getting into.
SPEAKER_01: Now you're 25 years in.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think Lot just woke up one morning and said, you know, I think I'd really love to raise my family in one of the most corrupt cities on the globe.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Like he didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: He just got there, and then all the years pass and he recognizes this is a different place than what I thought it was.
SPEAKER_01: He saw opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: He saw better land, better economy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm on, you hear this, people.
SPEAKER_01: This is us.
SPEAKER_01: Better land, better economy, more business, more influence.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us, we've made decisions because they look good financially or they look good professionally without asking what it could cost us spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, what happens is a lot of times we are pulled into compromise by opportunity more than rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna move.
SPEAKER_01: Here's God's compass, but it's a great opportunity.
SPEAKER_01: A little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: But but this person, I really like they're nice, they're attractive.
SPEAKER_01: This job, like, I it's it's not completely what God wants for me.
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, these little baby steps that you've taken have moved you so far away, you're in a totally different zip code than where you planned on being.
SPEAKER_01: There's wrong in the city, rampant, rampant wrongness, degeneration, and lot wanted justice.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Lot was probably one of the people who was crying out to God for justice, and God heard it and was like, I'm coming.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go on.
SPEAKER_01: Before they lay down, this is what happens in the city.
SPEAKER_01: It's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people, underline that, to the last man.
SPEAKER_01: A thousand people come to Lot's door.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: They are unified in their commitment to evil.
SPEAKER_01: This is how bad it is.
SPEAKER_01: They surround the house and they called to Lot where are the men who came to you tonight?
SPEAKER_01: Bring them out to us that we may know them.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm gonna filter this just a tiny bit.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want to ask them what they thought about politics or climate change.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't say, I want to know what your favorite color is, what are your hobbies?
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to know them in a biblical sense.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Bring out these people under your protection.
SPEAKER_01: Lot went out to the men at the entrance.
SPEAKER_01: He shut the door after him.
SPEAKER_01: You can see this.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I beg you, brothers, don't act so wickedly.
SPEAKER_01: Like, don't do this.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, come on.
SPEAKER_01: I've seen this happen over and over again.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do it this time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he's seen it before.
SPEAKER_01: This time, though, it's impacting him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not somebody else on the street.
SPEAKER_01: Like he even calls them brothers.
SPEAKER_01: These are his friends out there, like people he's done life with for 20, 25 years.
SPEAKER_01: He's made himself a part of their sin because he didn't speak up beforehand.
SPEAKER_01: This might be the first time Lot's ever stood up, and he's like a cornered animal in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: Like things are things are just escalating so fast, and he does something that is that is abhorrent.
SPEAKER_01: It is terrible.
SPEAKER_01: Next verse.
SPEAKER_01: Scared.
SPEAKER_01: Thousand people at the door.
SPEAKER_01: He's got the door behind him.
SPEAKER_01: Look, I have two daughters who haven't known any man.
SPEAKER_01: Let me bring them out to you and do to them as you please.
SPEAKER_01: My two daughters were leading worship today.
SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine this.
SPEAKER_01: I also can't imagine being inside my house and having a thousand people surrounding it.
SPEAKER_01: Two angelic creations with me, under my protection.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: And Lot scrambles, makes a terrible decision.
SPEAKER_01: It's awful.
SPEAKER_01: Twenty years ago, super prosperous, moved here for opportunity with shiny, and now the decision is starting to bite back, and it's biting back really, really, really hard.
SPEAKER_01: We do this all the time.
SPEAKER_01: We stay in our bad decisions.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm seeing myself in this.
SPEAKER_01: We stay in bad decisions, waiting for them to get better.
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, it's just a rough season.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna improve.
SPEAKER_01: Then years later, nothing's improved.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, it's gotten way, way, way worse.
SPEAKER_01: Lot has been accustomed, he's grown desensitized to dysfunction.
SPEAKER_01: People do this all the time.
SPEAKER_01: They do it in toxic workplaces, they do it in toxic relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all, sometimes they do it in toxic churches.
SPEAKER_01: They exist.
SPEAKER_01: And you just stick around.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's because you think you've invested too much to get out.
SPEAKER_01: Like I poured way too much into this.
SPEAKER_01: I can't just back out now.
SPEAKER_01: I overcommitted.
SPEAKER_01: Lot's whole life is here in this city.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've lived in this area for 20 years now, this year.
SPEAKER_01: May of this year, 20 years.
SPEAKER_01: Like my life is here.
SPEAKER_01: Lot's life was there.
SPEAKER_01: Wife, kids, men betrothed to his daughters.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we just need to admit that we made a bad investment and move on.
SPEAKER_01: It's sad, but it's true.
SPEAKER_01: Lest it come to this.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, the longer you compromise, the more expensive obedience becomes.
SPEAKER_01: And this expense now, it is it is dramatic.
SPEAKER_01: It is a grave expense.
SPEAKER_01: Get back into the story here.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 19, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: The people of the city, they say, stand back.
SPEAKER_01: Like, get out of the way.
SPEAKER_01: Then they start talking to each other.
SPEAKER_01: This guy, this fellow came to sojourn and he's become the judge.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're giving us your moral standard, your compass now.
SPEAKER_01: Now we'll deal worse with you than we would with the men.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what you thought we were gonna do to them, you're gonna give us your daughters.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do it to you, bro.
SPEAKER_01: Whole different scenario now.
SPEAKER_01: They pressed hard against the man Lot and drew near to break the door down.
SPEAKER_01: But the men, these are the angels inside, reached out their hands, brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.
SPEAKER_01: And they struck with blindness the men who were at the entrance of the house.
SPEAKER_01: So these dudes had power, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door.
SPEAKER_01: Think about this, okay?
SPEAKER_01: I've read this story before, I've seen little pictures of it, and I see like people kind of laying on his doorstep, you know, because they're blind, they don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: That's not the story.
SPEAKER_01: They were in a bloodlust, a frenzy, and when they got blinded, they didn't just disperse, they tried to find the door, even blind.
SPEAKER_01: They were so committed to this act of aggression and evil that they wore themselves out trying to get in his house blind.
SPEAKER_01: That's how crazy they are.
SPEAKER_01: This is a nuts situation.
SPEAKER_01: Then the men say to Lot, Do you have anybody else here?
SPEAKER_01: Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, anybody else in the city?
SPEAKER_01: Who's with you, bro?
SPEAKER_01: I wonder, I wonder almost if they're trying to get up to the to the ten people.
SPEAKER_01: Like there's five here, you, your wife, daughters, or four here, right?
SPEAKER_01: Anybody else?
SPEAKER_01: We're about to destroy this place because the outcry against its people has become so great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.
SPEAKER_01: So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, because they're out there.
SPEAKER_01: Get up, get up, get up, get out of this place.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's about to destroy the city.
SPEAKER_01: But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, dude, you're crazy.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we've been living here forever.
SPEAKER_01: This city, it's gray, man.
SPEAKER_01: What happens in Sodom stays in Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: As morning dawned, the angels urge Lot.
SPEAKER_01: Saying, up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.
SPEAKER_01: So as an outsider hearing the story, and you're probably tense with me right now.
SPEAKER_01: I I'm reading this, and I'm like, if this is a movie, I would be screaming at the TV, like, go, leave.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'm gonna ask you.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody's watching the story of your life right now on a screen.
SPEAKER_01: What are they shouting at the TV in your situation?
SPEAKER_01: In your life.
SPEAKER_01: What are they saying?
SPEAKER_01: Just make the decision.
SPEAKER_01: Just go do it.
SPEAKER_01: You're come on, like you know this.
SPEAKER_01: You know what's about to happen.
SPEAKER_01: You know how bad it is.
SPEAKER_01: Get out.
SPEAKER_01: You can see it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know that it gets this gets much more dramatic for Lot than this.
SPEAKER_01: I can't see it getting worse.
SPEAKER_01: And he's still delaying.
SPEAKER_01: This is human nature.
SPEAKER_01: It's every single one of us.
SPEAKER_01: It says this, verse 16, but he lingered.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us can remember times, maybe you're not there now, when we linger in sin.
SPEAKER_01: Just gonna linger a little bit longer.
SPEAKER_01: So the men seized him in this great act of mercy.
SPEAKER_01: They seized him and his wife.
SPEAKER_01: I picture one of them.
SPEAKER_01: Lot, come here.
SPEAKER_01: His wife, come here.
SPEAKER_01: You grab the other two.
SPEAKER_01: Grab the two daughters.
SPEAKER_01: They seized them.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, God saved Lot not because he was good.
SPEAKER_01: God saved Lot in spite of himself.
SPEAKER_01: And I know so many stories of people, this doesn't happen all the time, but I know so many stories of people who were in their sin and God grabs them and says, Come on, get out of this.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you today may be in that situation, and if I could, I could just tell you the Holy Spirit is wanting to do that for you right now.
SPEAKER_01: He's wanting to grab you by the hand and say, Let's get out of the city.
SPEAKER_01: Get out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm gonna judge, and the judgment is not gonna be good.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be bad for everybody who sticks around and lingers.
SPEAKER_01: Do not linger.
SPEAKER_01: Look.
SPEAKER_01: As they brought them out, one said, Escape for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Do not look back or stop important thing.
SPEAKER_01: God always warns us before he judges us.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a warning.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just gonna surprise you, like, aha! You thought you were playing this game, it's actually this one.
SPEAKER_01: I tricked you.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm gonna kill everybody.
SPEAKER_01: That's not how God is, that's not his nature.
SPEAKER_01: He's warning us, he's given us the entire testament of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: If you're sitting here, he's giving you someone who's trying to help you and share this.
SPEAKER_01: He speaks to us through circumstances, through his will.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so many ways he speaks to us.
SPEAKER_01: So he warns us before the judgment.
SPEAKER_01: Lot actually still, we won't read it.
SPEAKER_01: He still kind of argues, is like, well, I can't go to the hills, it's gonna be too far.
SPEAKER_01: Can you let me go to this city, Zoar?
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, sure, go there.
SPEAKER_01: We won't destroy that city.
SPEAKER_01: It was kind of in the same region.
SPEAKER_01: Just do it quick, because we can't do anything until you're there safe.
SPEAKER_01: Like, God must have given him a rule like, make sure Lot's good.
SPEAKER_01: 23, verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: As the sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar, then the Lord reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: And he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: This is crazy, y'all.
SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
SPEAKER_01: If you go to the region, geologists have actually studied it, there's still heavy traces of sulfur in the ground there.
SPEAKER_01: It's nuts.
SPEAKER_01: Like this isn't, again, this is not just a story, a myth that we share.
SPEAKER_01: This happened, y'all.
SPEAKER_01: And if you think about it, you think about a thousand people at least, because it's Sodom and Gomorrah and other places in that region.
SPEAKER_01: Thousands of people.
SPEAKER_01: Done.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, God, where's your mercy?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're like me, maybe you're not.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're not.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're just like, yeah, good riddance.
SPEAKER_01: But if like I the what I see from a lot of people today is we look at this and we're like, there's no way.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the objections people have to faith.
SPEAKER_01: Is they're like, how could God destroy a whole city with fire and brimstone?
SPEAKER_01: How dare he do that?
SPEAKER_01: Where's his mercy?
SPEAKER_01: Where's his compassion?
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: This seems like it might be overkill.
SPEAKER_01: Like he didn't just stop at the city, he was making a statement.
SPEAKER_01: He killed the ground.
SPEAKER_01: This is a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Again, maybe maybe I'm the only one that thinks this.
SPEAKER_01: Did they deserve this?
SPEAKER_01: Like this?
SPEAKER_01: As I thought about it, I had a different thought.
SPEAKER_01: Last week processing through it, I thought more about a lot.
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what he must have felt like.
SPEAKER_01: Not in the moment, but in the city he was in.
SPEAKER_01: In his situation.
SPEAKER_01: He's trapped.
SPEAKER_01: His livelihoods there, his business, his family, his everything is there in the city.
SPEAKER_01: Not a single person in the city is righteous.
SPEAKER_01: They are so fully given over.
SPEAKER_01: All of them came to his house to do this evil.
SPEAKER_01: All of them.
SPEAKER_01: Again, just thinking out loud.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that was the first time he'd seen something like this happen.
SPEAKER_01: He knew where it was going to go, which is why he said, guys, don't stay in the square.
SPEAKER_01: Last night on CNN, they get another report of what happened to the dudes who stayed in the square.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to stay there.
SPEAKER_01: Come here with me.
SPEAKER_01: Let me protect you.
SPEAKER_01: He'd seen it happen.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe the first time it was just one or two people, and they did something bad, and then nobody said anything.
SPEAKER_01: And then it was a bigger group.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, like there was a majority of people in the city doing this, and they're doing it to good, decent people, but it's so overwhelming, nobody can say anything.
SPEAKER_01: So they start crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: Like, God, can you do something?
SPEAKER_01: God, can you help?
SPEAKER_01: Imagine, and he's probably seen this happen.
SPEAKER_01: And some people that are good just leave the city.
SPEAKER_01: And some people that aren't good are like, well, I guess if I can't beat them, I guess I'll just join them.
SPEAKER_01: This happens in inner cities.
SPEAKER_01: Gangs.
SPEAKER_01: This is how gangs get so prevalent.
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't have a way out.
SPEAKER_01: There's no police that's gonna help me.
SPEAKER_01: There's no pastor.
SPEAKER_01: There's no parents that are gonna help me.
SPEAKER_01: Like, nobody's gonna come in and do justice for me.
SPEAKER_01: My life is here.
SPEAKER_01: My livelihood is right here.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have anything to do.
SPEAKER_01: You say, God, where is your mercy?
SPEAKER_01: God, where is your compassion?
SPEAKER_01: Same questions.
SPEAKER_01: Different people.
SPEAKER_01: Same questions.
SPEAKER_01: And they're fair questions.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I'll say about that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm so grateful.
SPEAKER_01: That that decision is way above my pay grade.
SPEAKER_01: That I don't have to be the one to decide when God brings justice and when God brings mercy.
SPEAKER_01: But as I as I judge God for destroying or not destroying, that's literally what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm putting myself in the place of the judge and saying, How dare you do that, God?
SPEAKER_01: My compass is here.
SPEAKER_01: How dare you?
SPEAKER_01: Way, way, way above my pay grade.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, God, he's merciful, but we don't get a determined when he exercises that attribute over and above his just nature.
SPEAKER_01: I think we have this problem in the West, particularly in America, where we feel like we're entitled to mercy.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like mercy is a blessing, mercy is a benefit.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, how dare you not give me mercy?
SPEAKER_01: Y'all, we don't deserve mercy.
SPEAKER_01: We don't deserve it.
SPEAKER_01: Mercy is something like, I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01: If you get what you deserve, you know what that's called?
SPEAKER_01: Justice.
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't make God less glorious when he enacts justice or mercy.
SPEAKER_01: He is glorious regardless.
SPEAKER_01: And he chooses what he gets to do.
SPEAKER_01: And we only see after the fact so easy to play armchair quarterback with God.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus actually mentions this story.
SPEAKER_01: This is mentioned multiple times in the New Testament, thousands of years after this.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus talks about it.
SPEAKER_01: And he actually points us to a different person than what we've even talked about, a different person that you might find yourself relating to.
SPEAKER_01: More than Lot, more than Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: Luke 17, he says, just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about that last week, Gilm shared.
SPEAKER_01: They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all.
SPEAKER_01: They're just living their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Best life ever.
SPEAKER_01: Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, remember this is the story.
SPEAKER_01: They were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.
SPEAKER_01: Notice, I'm gonna settle with a little head nod.
SPEAKER_01: None of those are bad things.
SPEAKER_01: Are they?
SPEAKER_01: Is eating bad?
SPEAKER_01: I do it most days.
SPEAKER_01: Buying and selling?
SPEAKER_01: I do that a lot of days too.
SPEAKER_01: Are those bad?
SPEAKER_01: Not on their face.
SPEAKER_01: They can be bad though, depending on how you do them, when you do them, why you do them.
SPEAKER_01: On the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all.
SPEAKER_01: So it will be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the final day when judgment Jesus comes.
SPEAKER_01: But he's zeroing them in on something to get them ready for that day.
SPEAKER_01: He says, On that day, let the one who's in the housetop with his goods in the house not come down and take them away.
SPEAKER_01: And likewise let the one who's in the field not turn back.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says three words, second shortest verse in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Lot's wife.
SPEAKER_01: All this crazy stuff happens.
SPEAKER_01: What's she got to do with this?
SPEAKER_01: Why could it be?
SPEAKER_01: We don't even have a name for like Sarah or or we don't even know who she is.
SPEAKER_01: Just Lot's wife.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 19, verse 26.
SPEAKER_01: Remember they were told, leave, don't look back.
SPEAKER_01: Lot's wife behind him looked back.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the most saddening verses to me in the Word of God.
SPEAKER_01: All she had to do was just keep going.
SPEAKER_01: All she had to do was just not quit.
SPEAKER_01: I say this to my kids.
SPEAKER_01: I say this to my wife.
SPEAKER_01: I say this to my friends.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't quit, you win.
SPEAKER_01: That's all she had to do was just not quit.
SPEAKER_01: She had to take one last glance, though.
SPEAKER_01: Just go back for one little taste.
SPEAKER_01: And you might think as you hear this, like, ooh, she was probably, she was probably like stuck in some sort of depravity, like the guys of the city, who knows what she was doing.
SPEAKER_01: We don't actually have any indication of that.
SPEAKER_01: Her life was there.
SPEAKER_01: This old life that she had lived, that she had come to enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: She had come to appreciate what was the sin of Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I can see myself in this too, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_01: Things God has called me out of.
SPEAKER_01: Said, Jake, turn away from this, don't look back.
SPEAKER_01: And I start walking away and I feel good about it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yes, yes, God, I take the first step, take the second step, third step, and then I get reminded of something.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, I remember that.
SPEAKER_01: I I wonder.
SPEAKER_01: Wonder how that person's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'll just check on them.
SPEAKER_01: Wonder what it's like to indulge in that just a little.
SPEAKER_01: Like, how are other people doing that?
SPEAKER_01: And you don't you don't fully engage in it, but you just look back.
SPEAKER_01: Just give it a glance.
SPEAKER_01: Something God's called you out of, and you just you just are fondly remembering it.
SPEAKER_01: And God's like, I told you not to look back.
SPEAKER_01: I I think what is so sad is I see this, I hear of this, I don't see it too often, but I hear of it happening with people who've been delivered out of drug addiction.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great metaphor for us with the sin in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Because we know sin kills us.
SPEAKER_01: And drugs, of course, they kill us.
SPEAKER_01: And people who come out of that, they've got this tolerance that their body had, and so they're used to taking this dose.
SPEAKER_01: They get out of it and they live out of it for a while, and then they just kind of glance back and they take a taste again.
SPEAKER_01: And because their body now is not accustomed to living that way, it's the last glance that they ever have.
SPEAKER_01: The body gets overwhelmed and they die.
SPEAKER_01: It was their last chance, and they looked back, and none of us know when that last glance is.
SPEAKER_01: None of us.
SPEAKER_01: For Lot's wife, this was a final last glance.
SPEAKER_01: She looked back and she became a pillar of salt.
SPEAKER_01: She didn't drop dead.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like she just collapsed.
SPEAKER_01: She was memorialized as a statue for everyone to see.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look back.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Again, I I know we've talked about all the craziness in Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: You might think, oh, it's violence, it's sexual depravity, it's all this.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, that wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: Now, those were bad things, and they're they're consistently in scripture as bad things.
SPEAKER_01: Those are just symptoms of a deeper issue.
SPEAKER_01: So you might say, Yeah, I don't relate to anything here in Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: Not me.
SPEAKER_01: You want to bet?
SPEAKER_01: Ezekiel 16.
SPEAKER_01: We find out what the real sin of Sodom, what caused this, started here.
SPEAKER_01: This was the underlying disease.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: She and her daughters, the other cities, had pride.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody here's got that, right?
SPEAKER_01: None of us?
SPEAKER_01: None of us got pride?
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
SPEAKER_01: Probably have pride if I say that.
SPEAKER_01: Excess of food.
SPEAKER_01: None of us here have ever eaten too much, right?
SPEAKER_01: We don't live in a country where our shelves are always fully stocked.
SPEAKER_01: You never had to go to the grocery store and worry if there's bread, other than in a storm when people are being silly.
SPEAKER_01: We have excess of food.
SPEAKER_01: So much.
SPEAKER_01: Prosperous ease.
SPEAKER_01: If you are in America, you might say, look, my life ain't easy.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in America, you are in the top 1% of the world.
SPEAKER_01: If we draw a cut line and you say, hey, what percentage do you think?
SPEAKER_01: What where would you draw like these people have it easier?
SPEAKER_01: You would probably draw it somewhere short of 1%.
SPEAKER_01: You're in the top 1% if you live here.
SPEAKER_01: You hit the lottery.
SPEAKER_01: Prosperous ease.
SPEAKER_01: That was what happened at Sodom.
SPEAKER_01: But did not aid the poor and needy.
SPEAKER_01: They were haughty and an abomination before me, so I removed them when I saw it.
SPEAKER_01: You can read Sodom and Gomorrah and be like, how awful is that?
SPEAKER_01: God looks at what they did.
SPEAKER_01: The cries reaching him in heaven were, man, they're super prideful.
SPEAKER_01: They have so much food, they don't know what to do with.
SPEAKER_01: Their life is so easy.
SPEAKER_01: All the things Lot saw that made him move there.
SPEAKER_01: And then it corrupts them.
SPEAKER_01: I was with a friend on my ministry trip last week, and he's like, he's talking about different people like ministers who've fallen.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, you know, I know a lot of them.
SPEAKER_01: He was naming names.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wow.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, every single one of them, what's interesting is none of them just had a big thing that happened.
SPEAKER_01: It was all a sequence of compromises that they made.
SPEAKER_01: And then finally, it resulted in this big thing.
SPEAKER_01: What I'd love to do, I would love for us to just close and take a moment and pray.
SPEAKER_01: You know, when the word, when the word of God, when we when we hear the word of God, when the Lord ministers to us, we always have a an imperative for us to respond to that.
SPEAKER_01: Like if God's been ministering something, if there's something in this narrative, again, maybe you're Abraham, maybe you're like, God, I want mercy, or you're thinking, like, man, I need to be more like Abraham.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be pulled that direction.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you think you're in danger.
SPEAKER_01: You're in danger of becoming like Lot.
SPEAKER_01: You've made decisions, and the expense of that compromise that you've made is growing and growing and growing and growing.
SPEAKER_01: And the people you're responsible for now are stuck in a situation that you made for them.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you're stuck in it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're becoming like Lot.
SPEAKER_01: Are you becoming, are you in danger of becoming like his wife?
SPEAKER_01: You feel good about where God is calling you, what he's doing in your life, but you're like, oh, but can I just look back?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to take a look.
SPEAKER_00: You can find us on the web at manastafford.church or download the Mana Church app to listen to our new episodes as they become available.
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SPEAKER_00: We would also love to meet you in person.
SPEAKER_00: If you are local, our services take place each Sunday at 10 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: We pray you have an amazing week, and we'll see you next time.