Leftovers: “Lot”(s) of them
If you’ve ever lived with a pastor, you’ll know the hours after church can be a roller-coaster. Well, I was particularly ‘touchy’ at home this past Sunday. With Joanna’s help and listening ear, I was able to debrief and work out what was causing the angst. It will take an illustration to explain:
The Homiletical Chef
Preaching can feel like preparing a meal. During the week you go to God’s pantry, gather the ingredients from His Word, and endeavor to combine them faithfully. In the end, you’re hoping for a blend of something that is pleasing and palatable for consumption, but also hearty and healthy for longterm sustenance.
The ingredients are familliar. Grace, like butter, always tastes good and helps things go down easily. Holiness, like garlic, is a strong and necessary flavour that brings out the other elements. We could go on, but you get the point. The text is the recipe and the truths are timeless. God’s truth is organic, lively and fresh - nourishing our souls through the life-giving Spirit.
So back to Sunday. I told Joanna I felt like Genesis 19 was a five course meal, and I left a few courses in the fridge. The text is rich, balanced, compelling - and as evidenced by its use throughout Scripture (prophets, the Gospels, epistles, Revelation). Yes the componets are good, but the point is that the courses go together. The whole is enhanced by the interaction of its parts. But enough of my musings on preaching.
The point is I left Sunday with a sense that some courses had been skipped. Or, perhaps they were served and cleared before the listeners could have but a taste.
If you’re still with me, what follows is my attempt to clear out the fridge of Genesis 19. Leftovers aren’t as good in my opinion, but they are worth keeping. And if we don’t use them now, they might go ‘off’ and grow strange things on them.
The Leftovers
Each of the five segments the in saga of Genesis 19 aligns with a profound lesson for today:
Receiving God’s Messengers (v.1-11) - Humility is required as the key virtue that prepares us for accepting those God has sent to communicate His Word to us. In this way it sets the stage for faith, which is the true distinctive between the righteous and the wicked.
Believing God’s Message (v.12-14) - Sin is blinding. If humility is the spectacle for faith, then sin is a cataract obscuring even the most obvious from our eyes. And like cataracts, sin naturally grows, spreading and defiling more and more until veiled in darkness. It’s little wonder, then, it requires the regenerating work of the Spirit of God for someone to hear, believe, then receive Jesus’ Kingdom. To those outside, this Kingdom is a joke and its King worthy of the scoffing he endured.
Fleeing God’s Judgment (v.15-22) - Separation is coming upon the earth to make a permanent divide between the righteous and the wicked. C.S. Lewis would call this “The Great Divorce” in his novella of the same name. The thought of a mingled fate, a shared future between the righteous and the wicked, is but passing fancy - a mark of the impermanence of these overlapping ages. Here we need to emphasize the gospel as “news” because it sounds the final alarm. We are in the last days.
Seeing God’s Justice (v.23-29) - God remembers mercy in the midst of judgment. Specifically this mercy comes to the righteous through the intercession of God’s servant. Here Abraham prefigures Jesus as the solitary mediator between us and God. When this Jesus comes again, justice will be done and seen to be done. The plea of the Church, God’s righteous remnant in this hour, is to see Jesus as the true treasure.
God’s Ways Perverted (v.30-38) - Fear erodes faith to the point that even the righteous become ineffective. The price for Lot’s diminishing trust in God’s command, then God’s pledge, would be a lineage of spiritual perversion. From his sons would come the Moabites and the Ammonites. The former seduced God’s people in the wilderness with idolatry and sexual immorality. The latter would introduce the people of Israel to the worship of Molech, another false god, known for demanding child sacrifice. The perverse means by which this lineage began is dwarfed in comparison to the pervasive deviance their influence wreaked upon their neighbors. And behind all this evil, it was fear that confined Lot to the cave.
Bread Crumbs
A few interesting tid-bits worth savoring:
The prophet Ezekiel excoriates God’s people in Jerusalem (Ez 16:49-50) by addressing them as an adulterous wife, one of whose daughters is called ‘Sodom.’ Among a chapter full of shocking imagery, the texts reads, “this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me.” (NIV) Where we might have expected to read about their sexual sin, instead we read of their pride, greed, and lack of compassion for the poor. I wonder if they had avo toast in Sodom?
Spurgeon gave no less than nine sermons on this passage - NINE! Two are worth mentioning here: (1) “A Solemn Enquiry Concering Our Families” where he observes that the angels’ question to Lot in v.15 is “calculated to excite us to anxious effort” so that we plead our dear ones to repent and believe, and (2) “The Flight to Zoar” where he likens Lot’s night-time journey out of Sodom to our journey out of unbelief and into faith in Christ. He writes, “…like Lot going to Zoar, [sinners] are all in the dark, and can see nothing until they come to the Saviour.”
Some great observations during our “Sermon & Scripture” conversation this week:
Stephen Cole, Pastor - “Sin loves to defile. It always seeks to turn the pure into the impure. Wicked people are not happy until others have shared in their wickedness.“
Warren Johnson, Elder - “Whereas Lot offered the impure (his flesh and blood) to protect the pure (heavenly beings), God does the opposite. He offers the pure Jesus (heaven’s Son) to protect impure humanity (sinful flesh).”
A few other questions we are still pondering:
How is Lot a righteous man? Why is he even living in Sodom?
Where did the outcry against Sodom come from? Could it have come from Lot?
Why does Lot still hesitate in the early hours of judgment day? Does he not want to leave, or is he concerned for the fate of those he can’t take with him?
These are some related Scriptures worth pondering: 2 Peter 2:4-7, Hebrews 10:36-39, Luke 17:28-33, Matthew 11:20-24
The Last Bite
In a passage that has so many links, perhaps the best ‘last word’ to remember about Genesis 19 is this: Jesus was descended from a Moabite. We know Jesus was descended from King David, but do you recall that David’s great-grandmother was Ruth, a Moabitess?
She is exemplary in her devotion. When presented with the chance to return to her own people and make a life for herself, she chose instead to leave that life behind and clung to Naomi. This faith-prompted determination won her a place in the lineage of God’s chosen people; indeed, in the lineage of God’s very own Son-Messiah.
At the crossroads this was her confession, “Where you go, I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God,” (Ruth 1:16).
So may we cling to Christ - and never look back.
Separation Is Inevitable.
Judgment Will Come.
Sin Is Blinding.
Lingering Is Fatal.
Jesus Will Come.
The Time Is Now.