Sermon Title: These Walls (Gen 19:1-38)

19:1 The two messengers came to Sodom at evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom. Lot saw them, androse up to meet them. He bowed himself with his face to the ground, 2 and he said, “Oh please, my lords, please turn into your servant’s house, stay the night, wash your feet, and you can rise up early, and go on your way.” They said, “No, for we will stay the night in the street.” 3 He urged them greatly, so they turned in with him, and entered into his house. He made them a feast, and baked flatbread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people of the area. 5 They called to Lot, and said to him, “Where are the men who came in to you this night? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”

6 Lot went out to them through the door and shut the door behind himself. 7 He said, “Please, my brothers, don’t act so wickedly. 8 Look 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 what is best in your eyes. Only don’t do anything to these men, because they have come under the shadow of my roof.” 9 They said, “Step away!” Then they said, “This one comes to sojourn, and he appoints himself a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them!”

9b They pressed hard on the man Lot and came near to break the door. 10 But the men reached out their hand, and brought Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. 11 They struck the men who were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. 12 The men said to Lot, “Do you have anybody else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place: 13 for we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown so great before Adonai that Adonai has sent us to destroy it.” 14 Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Adonai will destroy the city!” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

15 When the morning came, then the agents hurried Lot, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the wickedness of the city.” 16 But he lingered; and the men grabbed his hand, his wife’s hand, and his two daughters’ hands, Adonai being merciful to him; and they took him out, and set him outside of the city. 17 It came to pass, when they had taken them out, that he said, “Escape for your life! Don’t look behind you, and don’t stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be swept away!”

18 Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lord. 19 Look, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your loyalty, which you have shown to me in saving my life. I can’t escape to the mountain, lest evil overtake me, and I die. 20 Look, please, this city is near to flee to, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape there (isn’t it a little one?), and my soul will live.” 21 He said to him, “Here, I have granted your request concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hurry, escape there, for I can’t do anything until you get there.” Therefore, the name of the city was called Zoar. 23 The sun had risen over the land when Lot came to Zoar. 24 Then Adonai rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Adonai out of the sky. 25 He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground. 26 But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Abraham went up early in the morning to the place where he had stood before Adonai. 28 He looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and saw that the smoke of the land went up as the smoke of a furnace. 29 When God destroyed the cities of the plain, God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the middle of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in which Lot lived. 30 Lot went up out of Zoar, and lived in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he was afraid to live in Zoar. He lived in a cave with his two daughters. 31 The firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the land to come in to us in the way of all the land. 32 Come, let’s make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.” 33 They made their father drink wine that night: and the firstborn went in, and lay with her father. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she arose.

34 On the next day, the firstborn said to the younger, “Look, I lay last night with my father. Let’s make him drink wine again tonight. You go in, and lie with him, that we may preserve our father’s family line.” 35 They made their father drink wine that night also. The younger went and lay with him. He didn’t know when she lay down, nor when she got up. 36 Thus both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn bore a son, and named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites to this day. 38 The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ben Ammi. He is the father of the children of Ammon to this day.

Euphemism: An everyday word that is used in place of one that’s crude or sexual in nature.

Lev1-10: Directions for “priests” approaching the house of God properly

Lev 11-16: Directions for “priests” on how to cleanse the house of God properly

Lev 17-27: Holiness Code – Directions for all to enter into God’s presence

-Lev18 (and 20): Sexual holiness

Lev 18:6-18: No incest

Lev 18:19-20: No adultery (+ during menstruation)

Lev 18:21: No exposing children to sacrifice/sexual depravity

Lev 18:22: No homosexual acts

Lev 18:23: No sex with another species

Gen 19:1-4: Sex w/another species (angels)

Gen 19:5-7, 9: Sex with 2 agents of God & Lot himself (homosexuality)

Gen 19:8: Young men of Sodom (exposing children to depravity); Sacrifice of Lot’s daughters

Gen 19:8 Sex w/Lot’s betrothed daughters (adultery)

Gen 18:30-38: Daughters rape Lot (adultery & incest)

9 Don’t you know that people who are unjust won’t inherit God’s kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, recipients of homosexual acts, givers of homosexual acts 10 thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won’t inherit God’s kingdom. 11 That is what some of you used to be! But you were washed clean, you were made holy to God, and you were made right with God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Bottom Line:

Sincerity paves the way for holiness.