A ‘Lot’ of Trouble

Gen. 13:5-13; 18:17-32; 19:1-11, 24-28

 

 

Look at our world.  We have to talk about homosexuality and perversion.  Let’s look at the story of Lot.  Remember what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah.  America is asking for it.  Sodom’s sins will reap Sodom’s judgment.  Our God is just.  He is fair.  He is consistent.  I believe the Lord is going to judge us for our national sin.  His other option would be to apologize to Sodom.  Not gonna happen.

 

It makes me want to talk about the issues of the day:  LGBTQIA LMNOP

It makes me want to talk about the Trans Trend / the sports controversy / the drag queens / the woke popularity of being effeminate / the killing of true manhood / the fact that a quarter of high school students now SAY they identify as something other than what they are.  I want to talk about these things.  I want to talk about all the churches ordaining homosexuals as pastors.  I want to talk about the restrooms and locker rooms and all of these issues.

        But instead…we’re gonna talk about the Bible.  Let’s speak the truth, in love, remembering we are all sinners.

 

A.    The Course of the man—Lot (Abraham’s nephew)

 

There came a time when they had to separate.  (this place ain’t big enough for the both of us.)

Abraham did something very unselfish…gave him the best land…land which had been promised to himself. [satellite image] [fly by view]

 

Look at Lot’s course:  The course of the man

13:10       lifted up his eyes toward Sodom

12. pitched his tent toward Sodom

19:1         sitting in the gate!  Living there! 

Ps. 1:1     Blessed is the man that walketh not…

 

Lot was:

1. Weak in his devotions

Abraham had an altar, Gen. 13:5 says Lot had flocks, herds, tents.

 

Abraham had devotions in Gen. 19:27…He knew that God would keep him from sin, and sin would keep him from God!

 

What you get here in 3 services a week is not enough.  You can only ride on someone else’s spiritual coattail for so long.  Sooner or later you have got to develop that personal, intimate, one on one, daily relationship w/ God.

 

Weak in his devotions…

2. Worldly in his desires

Gen. 13:10 says that Lot chose Sodom because it reminded him of the land of Egypt…that he had been saved from! (World)

Lot asked, is this a good place to raise cattle, but he should have asked if it was a good place to raise kids!

 “Make money”, not “grow spiritually”… “feed me”, not “be fed”

 “Serve myself”, not “I, myself, can serve God.”

 

He became worldly in his desires.  It was a very worldly city of sexual promiscuity and homosexuality and perversion which so often follows promiscuity!

 

Jesus said, “remember Lot’s wife”—she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.  There are many salt pillars in dried up areas of the Dead Sea…and another up on the hillside [prob. not Mrs. Lot].  Anyway, she was worldly too, she looked back at the burning city longingly!  There goes my home/possessions/friends/but also her lifestyle…even if she wasn’t practicing their ways, she was comfortable around it…her heart was still in Sodom, and even worse, Sodom was still in her heart.

        And how about you?  You’re “straight” [amen?], but are you comfortable being in sin-filled situations and places?  What’s the difference between allowing it on our TV’s and allowing it in our bedrooms?

        They were worldly Christians who vexed their righteous souls by staying in that place.

 

Lot was weak in devotions, worldly in his desires...

 

3. Wrong in his decision

Gen. 13:11              3 key words… “then Lot chose”

God allows us to choose our own path…but He doesn’t allow us to choose what destination that path will lead to.

        God will allow us to choose anything we want, except for the consequences, we can’t choose those!  As a matter of fact, we have to live w/ the consequences of our choices.

 

Every decision we make, to at least some degree, affects the direction of our future.  For the most part, our decisions are determined by our desires.

 

Decisions may seem small at the time, but you never know where those roads will lead.

        Our teens need to think twice before they attend that party.  Because you never know when you’ll make a decision that will change the course of your life forever…that dance/car alone together/rebel against parents

 

“then Lot chose…” and he lived forever w/ the consequences of that worldly-minded decision!

 

Lot was weak in his devotions/worldly in his desires/wrong in his decision…

 

4. Wrecked in his demise

 

Here’s a man that the NT says was saved, but he’s lost everything but his salvation, which reminds us of the verse in…

I Cor. 3:15

    If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

 

…and in the end of ch. 19 we find a wrecked Lot getting drunk, committing incest w/ both of his daughters, and the result of those relations was his daughters each giving birth to leaders of enemy nations (Ammonites/Moabites) that would plague Israel for years to come, even to this day…oh, the power of a single decision!

 

That was the course of the man…

2.     The Curse of the society

We should try our best to be positive about the future of America…we should strive to be optimistic…but we need to be realistic.  Nothing is more “real”istic than the Word of God, which makes it very clear that sowing Sodom’s sins will reap Sodom’s doom.  Imagine fire falling from heaven that consumes all…’til nothing remains but a pile of ashes [actual site slide].  Archaeologists believe the lowest portions of the city, where all the melting runoff would go, actually sunk into the Dead Sea, contributing a lot to its current state.  There certainly would be a lot of salty, sulfuric components in God raining down brimstone, which literally means “sulfur.”  This slide shows pictures of embedded sulfur drops and sulfur balls [96% pure sulfur] which dot this area…they number in the millions!

        Kimberly and her parents have been to this actual site and her dad has told me more about it…some parts of the ruins show signs of melted rock strata, and if you touch it, it crumbles like ashes!...It’s all further proof of the Bible’s accuracy!

 

We should be reminded of the fact that throughout history, God has never once failed to judge a nation that has accepted such practices.  God refers to this sin as an abomination.

 

God loves all people, including homosexuals. And thus, like Christ, Christians (forgiven sinners) should love all other sinners and seek to help them. The religious community, however, should not be required to endorse sin, and neither should the government.  But we need more compassion for people trapped and deceived…more compassion and less feelings of superiority.  A lot of innocent young people are being tricked by adults who are anything but innocent.  They are perverts – deviants.  And they are recruiting since they cannot reproduce. 

We need to offer help and hope to those who are deceived, and model what it means to stand firm in the image in which God created you.

 

America has become a nation for homosexuals.  And homosexuals from other nations that feel unwelcome have found a home here.  It has been said that if America doesn’t get right w/ God, then God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  Brazenly, unashamedly, they flaunt their sin…in your face!  It’s not enough for them to just say they’re ok w/ it, they want your endorsement as well!  And they won’t be happy until the government officially endorses their sin/gay marriage/military endorsement…it's here!/public school endorsement/church endorsement…here already, in large part/every week you hear about another church that has ordained a homosexual, or performed a so-called homosexual union.

        What I’m saying is not hate speech…our constitution refers to it as “free speech”!

 

Remember, God loves sinners/homosexuals.  And in love, our God, which knows what sin will do to us…ruin our life…drag us to hell, He calls upon all sinners, inc. homosexuals, to repent!  And our God, who loves these sinners, hates their sin, and Jesus died for those sins, just like ours…as if He had committed them!

 

Our culture today whitewashes sin.

Drunkard/alcoholic…now it’s a disease, releasing them from personal responsibility.

Thief/cleptomaniac - adultery/affair…sounds so sophisticated!

Sodomite/gay, glad…we’ve taken good words from the English language, that used to mean happy and carefree, and now used to describe perverts and deviants.

        God doesn’t think that sodomy is gay…He calls it repulsive, abominable, and abhorrent.

 

If the Bible is clear on anything, it teaches that the sin for which Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed was the sin of homosexuality.  And yet they are trying to rewrite the Bible, and say that Jesus would say it’s ok.  But Jesus said a young man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife.

 

Many people, even some professing Christians, deny that today…homosexuals take the Scripture and twist it…they do all kinds of mental gymnastics to try to teach otherwise…even claiming that Jesus and His disciples were gay, because they lived in a commune together!

        God’s Word strips away the veneer!

I Cor. 6

⁹Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, ¹⁰Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

 

They can be saved…I’ve led a homosexual to the Lord before!  And the next verse continues…

¹¹And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

 

Lev. 18

²²Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

Lev. 20

¹³If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death…

Rom. 1

²⁴Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: ²⁵Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. ²⁶For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: ²⁷And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.  (AIDS?) 

 

Look at this:  Other sins which are grouped w/ it:

²⁸And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; ²⁹Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, ³⁰Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: ³²Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Eph. 5

¹¹And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. ¹²For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.

Is. 3

⁹The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

 

It is not natural…God our creator has spoken!  (That settles it, whether you believe it or not!)  The animals understand, but man cannot!

True medical science can only support that homosexuality is a behavioral choice!

Homosexuals claim there is a “gay gene” which they inherit.  Medical science disagrees.

Ill.—identical twins cases where one “turns out” gay and the other not.

 

I agree to a certain extent!:  I believe we all inherit a gene…a gene called the sin nature.  And any of us are capable of choosing that sinful lifestyle, as so many have!  Our other sexual sins are very wicked in God's eyes as well!

 

The trends today toward perversion are scary.  The end of the road our society is on is frightening!

 

Homosexuals want more than just equal status, they want preferred status.  Like the men beating on Lot’s door…they were demanding to be let in so they could defile the “men” [angels] they had seen enter there. 

        Same way today…not only do they want an employer to have to consider them equally w/ another applicant, regardless of his personal beliefs, but they want him to feel pressure to choose them over another, to keep him out of trouble and help fill a quota!

 

Lawmakers have taken our discrimination laws, which are a relatively good thing protecting people regardless of race, color, creed, and have added the phrase “or sexual orientation”.  And lawmakers like Barney Frank, an openly homosexual former Senator, stood on a platform of discrimination that is very shaky.

 

He said, “We shouldn’t be discriminated against any more than the blacks or the Jews.”

 

If I were black, or Jewish, I’d be offended at that statement.  For you cannot choose your race, but you can choose your lifestyle!

 

Pres. Clinton appointed at least 25 openly homosexual men and lesbian women to key positions in his administration, including his cabinet.  When the homosexuals are moved from the closet--to the cabinet…we’ve got major problems!  Then he declared a perfectly good month on the calendar to forevermore be in honor of gays and lesbians…complete w/ parade!  On June 1, 2009, President Barack Obama proclaimed June to be Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Pride month in the United States. And each year things go a few steps further down the road of perversion, normalizing it.  Look at what they have done to the White House!  That rainbow is God’s symbol of peace, not your perversion.  Ironically, it was set in the sky after God’s judgment of sin fell from above, and it will be above God’s throne in heaven.

 

Meet secretary of trans – Pete Buttigieg

Meet former assistant nuclear secretary Sam Brinton

Meet Secretary of Health, “Admiral” Rachel Levine – whose real name is Richard

Judgment is coming, folks!

 

State Universities now teach what they call, “sensitivity training” to all incoming freshmen.  And students caught speaking out against this “alternate lifestyle”, can be the subjects of discipline for “hate speech”…whatever happened to free speech!  And at the same time, the homosexual crowd is allowed to speak against people like us, labeling us with all kinds of names, and that’s not hate speech?

They will try to silence preachers like myself.  Even though I don’t recommend gay bashing/trashing (physical/verbal abuse of them)…I do recommend gay evangelization!  Homosexuals don’t need reformation, they need transformation…a new heart!  Only the blood of Jesus can free a person from such shackles.  And we shouldn’t try to just keep our distance from them…or from this subject in our pulpits!  I have the right to preach the Bible, and against sin!

 

the course of the man/curse of society…

 

3.     The Cure that could have been

 

Abraham negotiated w/ God, and God said to Abraham, if there’s just 10 believers there, I’ll spare the whole city for just those ten!

Lot and his wife…that’s 2…he had 2 married daughters, they and their husbands make 6, and he had 2 unmarried daughters…there’s 8 right there.  If Lot had only reached his own family, and just 2 more, the whole city would have been spared.

 

But even his family laughed at him, because he was backslidden.  He had already lost his testimony…the NT says in

II Pet. 2:8 Lot dwelling among them, seeing them, “vexed his righteous soul from day to day” because of just being in their presence!

        Any of us can start down that slippery slope toward sin, not just homosexuality, but any sin. 

 

God may spare our nation, but if so, it will be because of an uprising…and uprising of the righteous…will you be one of them?  Even if you have to stand alone…take your stand!

 

As we close, I need to confess something.  I’m a sinner.  My sins are serious.  I shouldn’t feel superior to any other sinners.  I should judge myself, not judge others.

This is a hospital for sinners.  When you go visit a hospital you don’t expect to find everyone doing well.  So why expect perfection in the church?

 

If you’ve never been saved, you’re in the right place.  [Give gospel.]