Two things the world finds laughable are the ideas of salvation and judgment (19:14). Billy Joel captured the world’s attitude about a life of faith in his 1977 hit, “Only the Good Die Young.” The song was about his desire for a Catholic girl, Virginia Callahan, whom he knew in high school. One of the verses goes like this:
“They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
Some say it’s better but I say it ain’t
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints
The sinners are much more fun
Only the good die young…”
The song floundered a bit, but when it was banned by several archdioceses around the country, it sored. Billy Joel wrote those archdioceses and asked them to ban more of his songs. He said of his song, “It’s not so much anti-Catholic as it is pro-lust.”
The problem with the philosophy promoted in “Only the Good Die Young” is it cannot be substantiated real life. The misery in the world is caused by sin. Virginia had the good sense to ignore Billy Joel’s advances.
Even as believers, we have moments when the promises of God seem incredible (18:12). The ideas of the incarnation of the Son of God, eternal salvation, the resurrection of the dead, and the eternal judgment of the damned seem, at times, to be farfetched. To top it all off, God seems to stack-the-deck against Himself. In the storyline of the Bible, the promise of God is always under attack, humanly impossible to fulfill, and at the point of sure failure.
Why is this always the case? God wants glory for Himself, unmistakable, indisputable glory for himself. The more impossible the fulfillment of the promise, the more glory God gets because the more His nature and character are revealed. God always acts powerfully to keep His promise. We can say this another way, God will judge the world to bless His people. To bring His Promised Son into the world, he worked through a series of barren women, incest, and prostitution. Jesus came into the world and against all expectation was crucified and buried, yet on the third day God raised Him from the dead declaring Him to be the Son of God and that His sinless life and sacrificial death count for righteousness for all who repent of their sin and place their faith in Him. His resurrection then is a paradigm and guarantee for our eventual resurrection.
Genesis 18-19 is about the covenant promise of God fulfilled in salvation and judgment.
We have run upon this theme in Genesis thrice before: the Fall, the Flood, and Babel.
Chapters 18 and 19 are meant to be read together because of the way chapter 19 parallels chapter 18. First, in the overall structure of these chapters the story of Sodom (18:16-19:29) is sandwiched between the accounts of the progeny of Abraham and Lot (18:1-15; 19:30-38). Abraham and Sarah have a son of promise. Lot and his daughters have children of shame. Second, parallels in these chapters are meant to help us contrast Abraham and Lot, as well as Lot and the Sodomites. Both Abraham and Lot extend hospitality to their visitors (18:1-8; 19:1-11). Both are warned of the impending destruction of the cities of the plain (18:20-21; 19:12-13). Abraham interceded for Sodom (18:22-32), and Lot interceded for Zoar (19:18-21).
Our approach to this text is to look at it in 3 sections (18:1-15; 18:16-19:29; 19:30-38). In this text we will see how the covenant promise of blessing is fulfilled in salvation and judgment.
We need to feel how important this narrative is to the history of redemption. If the promise to Abraham fails, redemptive history fails. If there is no Isaac, there will be no Jesus. We have seen Abraham growing in his faith, understanding more and of the nature and character of God and God’s purpose in His call. Yet, what God had called Abraham to was much bigger than Abraham and more far-reaching than Abraham could possibly understand.
We also have to keep in mind how this text impacted its immediate readers. Israel was on the verge of entering the Promised Land, preparing for the conquest. The only possible explanation for their present position was the faithfulness of God to the promise made to Abraham. They had to understand that though the promise of God looks impossible, it cannot fail.
The text opens with the narrator’s comment that “the LORD appeared to [Abraham] (18:1). This is the third and final time we will read of the LORD appearing to Abraham (12:7; 17:1). At siesta time, Abraham sees 3 men standing in front of him. He obviously recognized one of the men to be the leader and addressed him in verse 3. Then he invites all three men to experience a little Abrahamic style hospitality (18:4-5). Hospitality was a vital part of ancient culture and violations of the hospitality code were grievous sins.
He quickly mobilized Sarah and a servant to prepare a meal for the visitors—curds and milk, a young calf, and all the bread 7 quarts of flour will make (18:6-8).
Abraham turns out to be quite the host. We will see Lot extend similar hospitality when two of the men visit him (19:1,15). It seems that Abraham had some inclination that his visitors were of a special nature. Lot seemed to be clueless, perhaps, until they blinded the men of Sodom and revealed their purpose (19:11-14). Little doubt, this text was in the mind of the writer of Hebrews when he wrote, Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Heb. 13:2).
That was a text, I was most familiar with as a kid. If we ever saw anybody hitchhiking or broke down on the side of the road, we were stopping because of Hebrews 13:2. In the folklore of the day, I would hear stories about kindness shone to strangers, the stranger would give some prophetic word, and disappear. Now, I don’t doubt those stories, but I remember my Dad searching a hitchhiker before he let him in the car with us, and my Mom saying, “You’ve got to be kind to strangers because some have entertained angels unawares.” I was thinking, “Do we need to search angels.” I kept waiting for the guy to say something strange and disappear. I think we missed something in the text. Why were hitchhikers and people in need the only angelic appearances of my childhood?
In verses 9-15, the purpose of the Lord’s appearance is discovered. The appearance to Abraham is really for Sarah. The LORD is accommodating himself to the cultural norms and expectations of Abraham, but accommodation has it limits. If Abraham has any doubt about the identity of these men, it is about to be over. They break form and ask, “Where is Sarah your wife?” (18:9) Obviously, they knew where Sarah was. This question is loaded, especially when considered in light of the Hagar incident.
If you remember in the last chapter, the LORD appeared to Abraham, changed his and Sarah’s names (17:5,15), and told Abraham point blank in a year’s time Sarah would bear and son (17:19,21). The way Sarah responded to the news that she would have a child in a year’s time (18:12) gives every impression that Abraham did not tell her about the visit he had. She responded in much the same way Abraham had (c.f. 17:17; 18:11-12). Before we give Abraham too hard of a time, it would be really hard to tell a 90 year old lady, “You’re going to have a baby!”
Notice the Lord is having a conversation with Sarah through Abraham (18:9-10, 13-14). When Sarah denied laughing, the Lord spoke directly to her ending the conversation (18:15, “No, but you did laugh.”).
The LORD raised the fundamental question that both Abraham and Sarah had, “Is anything too hard for the LORD?” Such an assertion of the power of God came from the prophet Jeremiah when he bought a field when the city of Jerusalem was under siege. He prayed saying, Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you (Jer. 32:17). Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me? Therefore, Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans….(Jer. 32:27-28).
The narrator lets us know that for Abraham and Sarah to have children was beyond human power (18:11). With intention, God had waited 25 years to give Abraham and Sarah the promised son. There must be no mistaking that the birth of Isaac is the work of God. God will get glory to Himself. He will do so by making His nature and character known. He has to get Abraham and Sarah in a position, in life circumstances, where they will be able to see His nature and character. He is the God who will be known! When you consider the breadth, height, and depth of the promises of God to Abraham, you see why drastic, worldview destroying confrontations are necessary—a great nation, blessing all the nations, the father of nations and kings? Really? How do you take that in?
God is able to accomplish everything He desires to do. Every purpose of His will be fulfilled. Is anything too hard for God? Both Abraham and Sarah had offered their attempts of fulfill the promise of God. They had tried to tame Him to their expectations? Can God, however, be limited by human expectations, human plans and proposals? Can the world finally say no to the Creator? Can God be counseled by man? Will He be instructed? Or is God free to be God? Is God God?
We try to overrule the promise of God with our desires. We take the life we want and baptize it in a kind of faith that makes our own desires into the purpose of God. We hatch a plan and create a god in our image to bring about our plan. When our plans fail, we are disappointed in God. What God intends to do is what He has promised. We are called on to conform our desires to His purpose.
You see Jesus struggle with this in Gethsemane, “Father, all things are possible to thee. Remove this cup from me; yet not what I will, but what you will” (Mk 14:36). The only Divine possibility for Jesus was the cross. For Abraham and Sarah, the only possible way to a son was impossible for them but possible to God because of His promise.
Is, therefore, your sin too difficult to forgive? Is your case unique and beyond the power of God to confront, forgive and heal? This culture will, in an effort to convince you to pursue sin, offer you the Kool-aide of normality and amorality and victimization. On the one hand, you can’t change your sexual orientation, but on the other hand, you can choose your gender and change it at any time. Have you noticed that we live in a day when everybody wants a diagnosis? We want some kind of label that takes away all our responsibility.
The gospel shatters the value systems of our age. It destroys our culture’s definitions of reality. It challenges what we know and how we know what we know. The gospel says clearly that all men are sinners and consequently under the wrath of God. God’s assessment of what our culture calls normal and excusable is that it is sin. The Son of God came into the world to put away sin and turn God’s wrath away from sinners in His substitutionary death and resurrection from the dead. He offers the forgiveness of sins to all who turn to Him in repentance and faith.
If the power of God is the crucial question of the first section of text (18:1-15), the justice of God is the question of this central section of text. Is God right in fulfilling His promise through salvation and judgment? Is God right in choosing Abraham (18:19) and showing mercy to Lot (19:16) but condemning the cities of the plain?
When God revealed to Abraham His plan to visit Sodom, Abraham raised the question of the justice of God in His judgment on Sodom. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just? (18:25). Perhaps, Abraham had no qualms about his own justification (15:6), but to destroy a wicked city, is this right? Is it just?
The question of the justice of God is huge. The presence of so much evil in the world causes us to question His justice. That one person suffers and another person seems to go unscathed causes us to question his justice. Some question God’s justice in judging anyone at all. Perhaps, some of us have dichotomized justice and mercy to the point that we see justice as just and mercy as something other than just. We would not say mercy is unjust, but we may not look at it as just.
This text shows that God’s mercy is just. God was just in choosing Abraham. Notice the soliloquy of God in 18:17-19. God is discussing with Himself whether He should hide from Abraham what He is about to do (18:17). That God revealed His secrets to Abraham was an indication that Abraham was a prophet. Notice the reasons the LORD argued for telling Abraham his intentions (18:18-19). God intended to show his faithfulness to his covenant to Abraham. He chose Abraham, and God choice of Abraham had implications for Abraham’s life. “Chosen” is the word otherwise translated “know.”
Abraham was a Mesopotamian moon worshipping pagan whom God set His favor on and called to Himself. Abraham was not more worthy of mercy than the Sodomites were. Yet, the mercy of God is not unjust or devoid of justice. The tension is resolved in the promise of a Son. God can be mercy to Abraham because His own Son would bear the just penalty of the sins of Abraham and for all who have faith in Him.
This is what Paul argues in Romans 3 when he says God put forward His son as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith, to show the righteous of God because he has passed over former sins but now at the present time shows His righteousness, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom 3:25-26).
This is what makes self-condemnation so sinful and prideful and arrogant. Don’t you see if you are in Christ, the mercy and grace that God extends to you through faith is just mercy? Christ bore the wrath of God for your sin! Will you now demean and despise the cross of Christ. God cannot demand payment for sin at the hand of His Son and then from mine! To do so would rob the cross of its power. Indeed, it would unjust.
Obviously, God had taken the initiative to bring Abraham into a position of interceding for Sodom. God did not disclose to Abraham his intentions toward Sodom just to give Abraham information, but because he had called Abraham to be a blessing to the nations (18:18).
In his intercession, Abraham has concern for the righteous in Sodom and for the people of Sodom. He also has concern for the justice of God (18:23, 25). While many points can be made here, I want to make two. First, it is a powerful and moving reality to see Abraham pleading for the cities of the plain, while those very cites have no inclination that their judgment is near or that they are the subject of a conversation between God and Abraham. Second, the reason God’s cataclysmic judgment has not fallen on the world is because of the presence of the righteous and those whom God will yet save from among the nations of the world. Is it not an obvious point that the most prosperous, free, and just nations on earth are those most influenced by the righteous? The most war torn, oppressed, unjust nations of the world are those that have been the least influenced by the righteous.
You will notice that the LORD agrees with every petition of Abraham. Abraham pleads for God to spare the whole region for the sake of 50 righteous (18:24), 45 (18:28), 40 (18:29), 30 (18:30), 20 (18:31), and 10 (18:32). As Abraham moves from 50 to 10 righteous, fewer and fewer words are used. The LORD is bringing the conversation to a close. Why stop at 10 is the obvious question? I think Abraham’s question is answered, God will not destroy the righteous with the wicked. He is just both in saving the righteous and judging the wicked.
Peter said this story teaches us the LORD knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment (2Pt. 2:9). In Abraham’s intercession there are contingencies that he has not thought of, but God still leads His people to pray their imperfect prayers so that they may share in his glory. Have you ever noticed how you pray for something and God answers in way different and much better than you could have conceived? That characterizes about 99.9 percent of my prayers. God answered Abraham’s prayer but not in the way Abraham had conceived it would look. God took Lot out of Sodom and destroyed the city. He will not sweep away the righteous with the wicked.
What is to be our position toward the world? Do we look at the peoples of the world with eyes of condemnation? Do we put ourselves in a place of moral superiority and rant and rave about the wicked around us forgetting that we have been snatched from the fire by the grace of God? We know God is just, and we enjoy a just pardon because of the work of His Son. The most wicked, foul, belligerent in the world may yet know the full pardon of the Son!
We learn in 19:1 that two of the three men are angels. It doesn’t seem that Lot is aware of their angelic nature until they strike the men of Sodom with blindness and reveal their plan to destroy the place (19:11-13). Reasonably, if he had known who they were, when the men of Sodom surrounded the house, instead of offering his daughters to them, he would have told the andels, “There are some men outside asking for you.” The conventions of hospitality placed Lot in a position that he had to protect his guests whatever the cost. Many cultures still have this mojo going on. The wickedness of Sodom is seen in their breach of hospitality—it betrays them as perverse and wicked men. Judges 19 has a similar story, only there it is Israelites who behave like Sodomites.
Lot is such a character, from the first time we met him until the last, you wonder how Peter could call him a righteous man. I’ll give him this. He is not like the men of Sodom, but he has a lot of Sodom in him. The text makes clear in 19:29, Lot is counted among the righteous because of his association with Abraham. He enjoys the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant.
Lot was in such a bad place that his sons-in-law thought his warning to flee judgment was laughable (19:14). He and his family literally had to be dragged out the city and made to flee (19:15-16). Then he bargained to go to Zoar instead of the hill country (19:17-20). This episode is meant to be contrasted with Abraham’s intercession. Lot could not tolerate the sojourning life of Abraham. He was from Ur. Even though Sodom was wicked and judgment was about to fall, Lot could not conceive of life without the city. Lot was the preacher in Sodom, and Sodom to a lesser degree was in the preacher.
How is it that we think we can’t live where God tells to go (19:19, 20)? We assess personalities of missionaries and church planters and try find a match for them that will create the best case scenario for success. We are so wise! God may want you to change. If you can’t go live in the Third World, the problem is not personality. The problem is sin, too high of an estimation of self.
Lot is an example of one who catered to his personal desires to the point of assimilating into Sodom so deeply he lost all effectiveness in his ministry. God had mercy on Lot (19:16) pulling him out of Sodom because Sodom was on the verge of destroying Lot.
God destroyed Sodom along with the cities of the plain (19:23-25). Like the flood, God’s judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah has become a paradigm for the final judgment of the world. Peter said Sodom and Gomorrah are an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. Jesus in His condemnation of Capernaum said, “If the mighty work done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day” (Matt 11:23).
What are we to make of the judgment of God falling on Sodom? God is just in His judgment on Sodom. Jesus’ words are a sobering reality. We have to realize that there was a conceivable set of circumstances in which Sodom would have repented. If they had seen the mighty works done by Jesus in Capernaum, they would have repented and remained. They would have turned away from their inhospitable intention of the violent, gang rape of their visitors and turned to God in faith.
How much more would they have repented if they had your privilege of hearing the whole story of the Son of God who not only did mighty works but died bearing sin and wrath and rose from the dead to justify all those who repent and place their faith in Him? If God was just in His destruction of Sodom, will He not be just in His judgment on you?
What do you do with this section of text? If nothing else the text shows us the survival of Sodom in the family of Lot. Zoar was, obviously, not what Lot thought it would be (19:30). Apparently, Lot’s daughters thought the hill country was the end of the world (19:31). The daughters of Lot hatch an incestuous plot to have children with their father. Twice the text tells us “Lot did not know” (19:33, 35). While those statements have a redeeming factor, Lot still looks like a buffoon. He may not have “known” when the events took place, but it remained no secret. Even in the names of Lot’s offspring, we hear the echo of their shameful origin. Moab is “from my father.” Ben-Ammi is “son of my kinsmen.” Here we are told is the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites (19:37-38). In Deuteronomy 2, the Moabites and the Ammonites are memorialized as the “sons of Lot” (Deut 2:9, 19).
What to do with this text? Well, immediately to Moses’ readers, they are not, here, simply told of the origin of the Moabites and the Ammonites. They are reminded that the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant extended to the sons of Lot. When Israel came out of Egypt, God would not let them dispossess the Moabites and Ammonites because He had given the sons of Lot their land for a possession (Deut. 2:9,19). The Ammonites and Moabites were also forbidden to enter the assembly of the Lord because of they did not meet Israel with bread and water when they came out of Egypt (Deut 23:3-6). Still there was hope Ammon and Moab.
Jeremiah picked up on a thread of hope for the sons of Lot. He said, Yet, I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the latter days, declares the Lord (Jer 48:47). Of Ammon, He said, But afterward I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites, declares the Lord (Jer. 49:6).
Here is the message of this text. God works good in the most hopeless of circumstances. If we fast forward in Genesis (38), Judah commits an incestuous act with his daughter-in-law Tamar. Perez is born, a son of incest. Fast forward, a Moabite woman, named Ruth, appears and marries her kinsmen, Boaz. Ruth is a daughter of Moab, the son of Lot’s incest. Boaz, who married Ruth, is in the line of Perez the son of Judah and Tamar. A son of distant incest Boaz and a daughter of distant incest, Ruth, have a son named Obed, who has a son named Jesse, who has a son named David, who has a son named Jesus (Matt. 1:1-6).
In the most hopeless of circumstances when the daughters of Lot had no other thought than to have offspring, even through shameful acts, God was working in the same situation to bring his son into the world! If there is no Moab, there is no Jesus.The question of evil seems to be a question that preoccupies man. To me the question of evil pales before the reality of good in this world. The most amazing thing in the world is good. The only explanation for it is that there is a Sovereign God who takes the most hopeless of circumstances and works to overturn the verdict of evil and do good, great good.
They devil is telling the world that children of incest are worthless. The devil lies and says you came from a dysfunctional home. You’re tainted. You were abused. You’re tainted. You were raised by a single mom. You’re tainted. Your parents aren’t married. You’re hopeless. You’re the child of prostitution. You are tainted goods and worthless. Yet, the sovereign God of the universe stands over your life and says, “I took the incest of Lot and Judah and brought my Son into the world to save sinners. I am the God who can speak good over your life and take whatever circumstance you’ve experienced and work it for redemption and glory and good.”