The Sanctuary: Walking With God Season 2 Episode 5 – A Lot To Understand

Welcome to Season 2 Episode 5 of The Sanctuary: Walking With God! In this episode, theologian Dan Robb and scientist Mark Wadsworth dig into the life of Lot as told in Genesis. Ever wonder why God allowed Lot to survive the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And I bring it up because I remember being a young college student coming back to my faith, and I was, I think I was reading Hebrews 5 or 6 or both, and I was I thought, well, there you go. There's proof I'm not a Christian. You know, I gotta get saved again. Welcome to the sanctuary. I'm Dan Robb. I'm the theologian. This is Dr. Gigglesworth, uh, Mark Watsworth, aka. Uh he uh he's just over there laughing before we begin.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Uh too much button on the bottom. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

I don't know. Maybe he's been hitting that uh the gas there yet a little too much. Laughing gas. The laughing gas. You know, he's like, let me just take a hit here. All right, I'm ready. And we're just having a good time here. Let's do another episode. Uh Looney. People tuning in will be thinking, what? Jeez. I'll have what they're having. Uh, right. No, thank you for listening. Now I am getting it. I'm doing it. Okay. It's a sanctuary. We're still walking with God. Yes, we are. Somewhere. So um, but uh today we'll be talking about lots, about the person's lot in the Bible, and uh we'll be including his wife in this whole thing here, uh, which is an interesting story in and of itself there. But if you have a question, a comment, a query, a conundrum, or a quagmire and wondering to know why we are even laughing, please reach out to us at contact at sanctuarybb.org. Or check us out on the Facebook page. Well, I'll be posting a picture of my shirt, which Mark's uh Mark has no idea why or who it was that's on it, but that's fine. Uh that's called a radio tease, Mark, because if you're just listening to us, now you're thinking to yourself, what is he wearing? And uh why is he wearing that? Exactly. Exactly. You hit the nail on the head there, Mark. Good. There is a connection. There is a connection of sorts, I guess. But you can uh watch us live, not live, but watch us on Rumble.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Or dead.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

Or yeah, something. You can do that as well, uh, just making that available and just putting that out there, just putting a vibe. Yeah. Um should you dare. Should you dare, yeah. But without further ado, uh, I bring this story up because of Lots of Lot and his life, because when I alluded to it last week's in that episode of when you look at his life in the Old Testament, you're thinking to yourself, you see the the Genesis 19 uh incident, and he's in there, and you're like, why is Lot living in a city that is utterly filthy and wicked like that?

SPEAKER_00 3:02

There's a lot of stuff going on.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

There's a lot of stuff going on there. And then you get to the New Testament and the Bible calls him righteous, and you think, wait a minute, uh what that doesn't add up. There's a guy that's doing all sorts of things in Genesis 19 or saying it, offering his daughters up there, and then you know, even his wife has an untimely end to her life, and then here is this guy who, you know, the Bible's calling him righteous, and it just doesn't add up. And I bring it up because I remember being a young college student coming back to my faith, and I was, I think I was reading Hebrews 5 or 6 or both, and I was I thought, well, there you go, there's proof I'm not a Christian, you know, I gotta get saved again. And I'm like, I have what what should I do? And I'm telling my pastor this, and he had enough sense to go, Dan, Bible calls Lot righteous. And he's like, I can't make sense of that. And he's like, why are you basing your salvation, your your eternal salvation on a passage like Hebrews that has so many different angles you could go with it on that when there's a clear thing here that's like this guy did a lot of bad stuff and he's still, you know, he's he's called righteous. And you know, it's one of those passages where you give that to somebody who is from a different theological perspective, Calvinist maybe, and they're gonna look it's a problem for them because a lot clearly, you know, when you read the biblical account, it doesn't sound like he's persevering in his faith. Query, Dan. Yes, yes, Mark, I see that hand. Uh yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Could it perhaps be that righteousness has very little to do with our actions?

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

And maybe a lot more to do with the actions of Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Indubitably. Ah. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Where's that monocle? All right. We both need monocles today here.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yes, we do. Something to hold my eyes open.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

I have two monocles in. Okay. Uh Genesis 19, one. Uh New King James. Uh it says, now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. So the guy that typically sat at the gate of Sodom wasn't like a you're going to a concert and he's collecting tickets. Uh it was a judge, right? It would be like a judge. Yep. Okay. Mordecai was doing something similar in the book of uh Esther. Uh when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face toward the ground. So he recognized these guys, and he said, Hear now, my lords, please turn in your servant's house and spend the night, and wash your feet then. You may arise early and go your way. And they said, Nah, I don't think so. But we will spend the night in the open square. But he insisted strong he insisted strongly. So they turned into him and entered his house, then made them then he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. So he's he's treating them, he you know, they're like, Oh, we're gonna sit in the s we're gonna sleep in the square, we're good. And he's like, Yeah, he knows what's going on in that city, and uh it's it's nothing good. And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came to you Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm skipping a verse skip skip verse four. There you go. Thanks, Mark. Uh now before they laid down, the man of the sit the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter surrounded the house. And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have that we may know them carnally. Now here's, you know, it typically Well, I'll make this comment here. Number one is that uh Lot noticed these guys and noticed that they were not just normal guys. Uh so he's he's he's begging them not to sleep in the square. Because he bows down to them and calls them lords. He's not just doing that for his health. He, you know, that's a common thing that you would do to somebody that uh you notice is uh quite different, you know. You notice uh has greater power than you or greater wealth or yes, there's all I mean, even uh Gideon, you know, notices there's several instances and examples in the Bible where that that had takes place. And if he notices them, then the men of the city also notice them and notice that they're not uh of this world, if you will. So I say all that because quite often this passage of scripture just gets turned into, oh, well, they're just they're sodomites and they're they're wanting to know them, and this is the the the proof text for um this is uh against uh sodomy, all right.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And uh, but Gary Wayne, he is a researcher, he wrote the the set of books called the Genesis Six Conspiracy. He does suggest in this that uh there was activity that's related to the Nephilim of chapter six, and potentially this was a possibly they were thinking they were going to get something from them or gain something from them, uh, because these angelic beings were appearing there and uh things were going on.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

That's now that so this is kind of like the upside down universe of chapter six of Genesis, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:51

It is.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

In chapter six, you have the sons of God, you know, what we call them angels, who come down and have their way with human women. Now here we are what uh sixteen chapters, thirteen chapters later. And now we have human men who want to have their way with angels. So it's kind of like upside down strangeness.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

It is, it is upside down strangeness, and uh there's a lot of activity going on in this area. Numbers 1333, uh New King James says there we saw the giants, the descendants of Ankh came from the giants, uh, and were like grasshoppers in our sight. And we were like grasshoppers in their sight in our sight, and so we were in their sight. So uh there's a little sub note that says Hebrew here. Let's see, when it says giants there, it means Nephilim, which is uh right out of Genesis 6. So that's in Numbers 13. So this is Moses, Joshua going into the land. Joshua rather going into the land. Moses didn't get to enter into it, and that's already been happening.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

So this is years after the story of Lot.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

This is years after the story of Lot. So it's uh theorized by Gary Wayne that uh there is some stuff going on there, and I think he has he raises a very valid point, and that's part of the reason why God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah. So, but that's part of a detail in the story, and uh I just wanted to kind of bring that out. Um so let's go on back here. So, verse uh six here. So Lot went out Lot went out to them uh through the doorway and shut the door behind him, and he said, Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly. Uh see now I have two daughters who have not known a man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish. Only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof. Of course they say, stand back, you know, we're not we're not pleased with this, you know, and they they they want to know them in the biblical sense, there, if you will. So as we go further here, let's see if it brings it out here. Lot's wife, you know, they're they're leaving. They're told basically he's Lot's basically told, Hey, we're gonna hear here to destroy the city, you need to get out of here, you and whoever else. So Lot and his family flee, and as they're leaving, Lot's wife turns back to look at them, and she gets turned into a pillar of salt. And Luke chapter 17, verse 31 and 33 through 33 says this And that day who who was he who was on the housetop and his goods are in the house, let him come down to take away, and likewise the one who was in the field, let him turn let him not turn. Um let him not turn back. So it's basically saying, Hey, once you leave, don't look back, and he says, Remember Lot's wife. And verse 33, whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. And I just bring that up just to kind of show you, you know, Lot's wife comes, it's it's like it's a kind of an illustration of when you're leaving something, don't look back, you know, and she looks back, and I'm sure it wasn't like a glance, like, uh, you know, they were told not to look back, like just leave what's going on, get out of here. And I think there's an illustration in there, really, of our lives, you know, where when we leave something, whether sin or whatever it is, you know, don't look back, don't give it a second thought, because looking back and entertaining the thought, you're gonna fall back into it. It's a very easy thing to do. But you think about who Lot is. Here he is, the city that's about he's the judge or the guy of some stature because he's at the gate, and he's trying to get these guys to stop doing whatever it is that they were going to be doing, and to these men, to these angels, and he's offering up his daughters to them. So whatever it is that they were going to do with these angels was that was so great wickedly. You think about that, and what happened in Genesis 6, you know, the Nephilim come, I mean, I'm sorry, the angels come, they create these Nephilim that basically are such a plague on the earth that God has to destroy it with a flood. So there is this great wickedness that's going on there and in Sodom and Gomorrah, and there was on the earth in Genesis 6, there was a great wickedness that had permeated down to everything, you know, uh, even the plant life there. So that's why God had to destroy the whole entire world. But you think about, you know, they're trying to start this here in Sodom and Gomorrah, let's say, and who Lot is? Here he is, this righteous guy who is just in this city, and he's almost, in a sense, not guilty by association, but yet he's enduring this wickedness around him. He's not uh leaving, he's not, he's sticking, he's staying there for some reason, and allowing his daughters who have not known a man to grow up in this environment here. And you gotta wonder, you gotta, in some ways, you question him, you know, you're like, what are you doing here? You know, and he kind of gets portrayed in that light, but then you come over to 2 Peter, and in verse 7, it talks about Lot. Uh, but we'll get the context here in verse 4. We'll pick that up. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, so they're part of this whole story with Lot here, and who sinned, but cast them down to hell, Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of gloomy darkness, uh, to be reserved for judgment. So that's the angels from Genesis six, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of the eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the on the world of the ungodly. And I think it's interesting that what Peter's doing here is he connecting what happened at Genesis six with the Sodom and Gomorrah event. It's kind of it's just interesting that he would lump both of these together, I believe, talking about the same thing. And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them ex an example to those who altered who afterward would live ungodly, and delivered righteous lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. Verse 8 For the righteous man dwelling among them tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds. Um reminds me of the reason why God took offense to what the angels did in Genesis six. They were operating outside the laws of nature by doing some of these, by doing the things that they did. But it calls them righteous, and I think we shouldn't be lost on that because you know, here you look at someone's life, and what are we always concerned about? Are they bearing fruit in their walk with Christ? And we got our fruit inspector card delivered in the mail after we ate so many General Mills cereals, and we get that inspector card, and we go, Oh, awesome, it finally came. And then we, you know, the there's a handy-dandy plastic uh magnifying glass, and now we're gonna be looking at everybody's life, and we look at these things and we're like, well, that guy is a Christian, but why is he hanging out with those people? Yeah. You know, or why are the why is he or why is she doing this thing over there? And it's so easy to be on the outside and to look in and to judge people, and also to kind of give our critique when no one's asking for our opinion, if you will. We don't know the situation.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

You're just trying to help.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

We're just trying, we're just trying to help, exactly. And I think it really you could you could look at Lot's life and you can say, where's the fruit that he's producing? You don't see anything. You know, here he is in wickedness, and it it talks about his righteous soul, but yet he's not having an effect on the people around him, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Well, he's not, but then it's probably because the people around him don't want him to. Right. And it kind of goes back to what you were talking about last week. You know, you you can you can put into people, you can water people, you can dis help disciple them. But if they're not interested in uh was it picking up what you're putting down as the the young say these days.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

That is what they say, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Then uh it doesn't really matter, right? You know, but you're doing the right thing by you know attempting to do what God would have you to do, but you can't you can't affect the behavior of other people unless they want to be affected.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Absolutely. And I think for us, we need to kind of get it we need to look at the Bible as a whole, and some of those people probably wouldn't be invited to churches today. Oh, you're right. Uh, because I mean we'll see them in heaven, but you know, they're not uh basically on the up and up according to the church's uh standard here.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

They have tattoos and they ride motorcycles.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yeah, or you know, oh wow, that uh that David guy, you know, he slept with a woman, committed adultery, he's married to a bunch of other women, you know, he's a polygamous, and uh he's also committing murder. And uh he's gonna come into your church and you're like, uh, you know, hide the women and children, you know, it's like, what in the world? Or you could talk about even this there's just the list goes on and on. Samson, you know, would he would he be welcomed in the church today? And even you even think about the Corinthian church. You know, Paul's saying, I wouldn't really know if you're saved if I didn't know that you had all these spiritual gifts here. And that's the thing that you know, we are in the world, but we are not of the world. But sanctification is something that is gonna cost us something to follow Jesus. Justification, our faith in Christ is when we believe in him, we you know, we are we are pronounced justified just as we had not sinned. So sanctification is that part that's gonna be the hard work.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

So it goes back to kind of the way we started it, doesn't it? You know, righteousness. We like to think that righteousness is something that we do, but is it in Isaiah that you know I think it's Isaiah that says that you know, your righteousness is filthy rags before the Lord. We're only righteous because Jesus paid the price for us and we're justified. And by justify that means that by our belief in Jesus as the Messiah and our acceptance of him as as the the true Son of God. Um that penalty uh for the sin that we have has been wiped clean. So in God's eyes we are righteous. Even though we have done terrible things and we may still do terrible things. As far as God views us, he doesn't see that because Jesus is is paying that price. So kind of the way with Lot, maybe. You know, I mean Old Testament saints were saved the same way we are, right? And so apparently Lot had a strong belief in God, followed him as best as he knew how, and even if his actions were you know as bad or worse than David's, yeah, it doesn't matter in God's eyes, he's still righteous.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Yeah. I mean, you look at somebody's life like see C Expergent, you know, who dealt with depression his entire life. And somebody that would have these dark sp moments, you know, these dark night of the Lord, if you will, I think is what he called it, you know, where it's just like he's he's in he's he's retreated into his into his room and it it's you know he's he's overcome by this depression. And you know, believers can go through all sorts of things in this life. And just because someone is struggling with something uh doesn't mean that they're not saved. So it's a it's incumbent upon other Christians to know that, show them grace and support and uh. Them through that time. And you know, sometimes, you know, tough things have to be said. However, though, we do need to learn really how to be gracious to bothers. And I think that's the hardest part because you know, as much as we want to say the Bible is black and white, there is a lot of gray in it as well. And uh I think just like we are just like we are, and to live in a black and white world, it's there there's no room for color, there's no room for gray or anything like that. So yeah, we can't uh just assume something because that we we knew someone else over here, and so we're gonna apply that to this person, and it's it's like they're they're two different situations.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

So being being a science geek, I want to take us down a little rabbit hole here.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Please do.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Uh it's kind of interesting the way the Bible says that God destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it's in verse 23, I'm sorry, verse 24 of uh chapter 19 of Genesis. It says, Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of heavens, out of the heavens. So he overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. Now, why do I mention that? Well, it turns out that in 2005 there were archaeologists that were digging around and they found the area. They found Sodom and Gomorrah. And one of the archaeologists, as they were tumbling through some ruins or whatever, picked up this piece of really uh interesting green glass. One of the other people at the site knew immediately what it was. It's crawl it's called Trinitite. And what Trinitite is Trinitite was named uh when it was created at one of the uh str uh nuclear explosions out in the New Mexico test site in 1945. And it's formed from sand and other, you know, feldspar and some other compounds, normally occurring compounds and kind of like sandy soil. But it takes something on the order of 10,000 degrees of heat to make this stuff. And the stuff they found in that plane where sodom is chemically identical to the stuff, or not identical, but very, very similar to the stuff that they found at the Trinity test site in New Mexico from 1945.

unknown 24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

So that gives you an idea. If it takes 10,000 degrees, you know, Fahrenheit worth of heat to cause this stuff to form, can you imagine what happened to that valley?

unknown 24:58

Can imagine.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

And you know, then you think, I mean, you were talking about Lot's wife, you know, it wasn't she just kind of looked over her shoulders, like, hey, well, you know, what's happening back there? You know, I I tend to think the way you did, you know, that they're probably traveling on, and the wife has one of those things, you go on, I'll catch up. And she turns around and she stands maybe on a ridge or something looking back on the valley, and the blast comes. Vaporizes her, turns her into a pile of. I mean, basically what we are is I think something like uh you know, eighty percent water, so much percentage carbon, and so much percentage salt. Yeah. That's what we are. So, you know, here comes the blast front, the incredible heat, and she's just there now as a pile. Yeah. So it's not as supernatural as you know we would have thought a number of years ago. You can you can see exactly how God did it. You know, he's been a he has been kind enough to us to uh and scary enough to allow us to understand how something like that can happen.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah, and it kind of is like the the illustration I've heard I don't know how many times in in churches, you know, but it's a good illustration, you know, of Cortez landing, you know, and the Spanish conquistadors, they burned, he ordered them to burn the ships, you know, giving them that idea that you're not going back. There is no going back, there is only we have to move forward. And I think, you know, in our sanctification process, there there are those times where maybe we are struggling with sin and we reach that moment where it's like, okay, it's uh time to do it, or you're never gonna do it, you know, and you have to have those, I guess, if you will, for lack of a better word or phrase, you know, come to Jesus moments where you go, okay, I'm okay, I'm I'm gonna be done doing doing this thing, whatever it is, and I need to, you know, devote myself to this. And I see, I hear it a lot in people in uh in AA, they'll say, they'll make statements like, uh, I just uh I came to meetings and I said to myself, why don't you just give this a year and see see what happens? And if your life is better, then there you go. Then you've lost nothing, you know? And if after that year you want to go back to drinking and doing all of that, then go for it. And they're like, after that year happened, I I realized I needed to stick with this because this was something that was helpful and a positive thing in my life. And I think that's that's true. You have to realize, okay, what what's going on? What if you know you took that step, you know, you crossed the Rubicon, if you will, in your life, and you just said, you know what, I'm not gonna go back. I'm gonna I'm going to move forward in this. What would your life look like? You know, what would it look like if you know you did surrender all? So I think that's something for all of us to kind of, you know, not beat ourselves up, but to at least kind of soberly look at everything and go, okay, what what could I do? What would what would it look like if God did actually, you know, move in my life.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Well, Jesus kind of warns us a number of times uh in the Gospels. You know, when he's talking to people specifically about how to be his disciples. And what came to mind while you were talking was uh Luke chapter 9, verse 62. And kind of going back a little bit, this guy comes to him and says, You know, Lord, I want to follow you, but first let me go home and bury my father. And that wasn't like his father just died and he needed three days off. You know, he's like, he means he needs to go back and wait for his father to pass and he'll come and do this. And Jesus' response to him was, you know, uh, no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God. Now you can read that and you can think, oh, fit for the kingdom of God, does that mean uh you're not getting in because you're you know, you're I don't know, sloppy or uncouth or just un whatever, unworthy. What's he talking about? He's talking about if you're going to move forward in your march in sanctification, if you're going to continue um moving forward and becoming more and more like the image of Jesus, which is what God the Father wants us to do, then you can't you can't do it for a while and then say, I think I'm gonna go back here and sit down or turn around and walk away and come back and all that. Because it's just not you know, what's gonna happen is it's way too easy for us as humans to take the easy way out. And so when times get tough, instead of sticking to it and doing the pushing through the hard part, you're gonna go back to that stuff that you were doing that maybe you just managed to squeak out of, but it's easy. Oh yeah. It's not hard, it's easy, and so that's what you do. You go back, and Jesus is like, you can't do that because if you do, you know, when I come and collect you one way or the other, there's gonna be a lot of work that has to go on. You know, you're gonna have some interesting conversations at the beam's eat, right? Yeah, you know, we don't want that. We want you to be fit, we want you to be healthy, you know, when you enter the kingdom of God.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

Absolutely. And uh just as you were talking, it reminded me of Proverbs 26, 11. Uh as a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

And uh, you know, Proverbs is is definitely checkful of a lot of those where it's just summing everything up in a nice sentence there where it's like, yeah, why would I return to that? You know, it doesn't really do me any good.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

So it's so easy.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

It is so easy. It is so easy. So, folks, um thanks for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe and smash that like button. And for next week, I do think since I did bring up Sodom and Gamora, I do I do feel like I need to do a little bit more developing of that idea. So I'll do uh a little bit more digging and uh research and give us some more clarity as far as what Joshua starts to see in the Promised Land and um some interesting things about where those patriarchs that are in the promised land they're living and how those names of the patriarchs aren't in uh Genesis 10.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

So it's uh it's interesting. Where do they come from? Why don't they have like somebody they're coming from? Why don't they have that lineage?

SPEAKER_00 32:08

That everybody skips with everybody in the Bible.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Everybody just so glossily over there, oh that's where do the Amorites come from? That's a very interesting uh story there about that. Yeah, on the way to the Colosseum. Uh no, never mind. Remember, folks, uh, we're not saved because we're eternally faithful to the Savior, we're saved because he is eternally faithful to us.