(Genesis) Genesis 18:6-11

If you have your Bible, and we'll turn there to Genesis 19, we are going to pick up at verse 6. Now, this is the chapter in which we see what we have called an example of blasted Christian life. This is an evidence of what today could happen to many believers, and it does happen to many believers. This man Lot had gone down into the city of Sodom.

He did not realize it was the kind of a city that it was. I'm sure of that, but he got down there and found out that perversion was the order of the day, and he brought up his children, his sons and his daughters, in that atmosphere. Now, when he looked down there, and you will recall we saw that he pitched his tent towards Sodom.

He looked down there, he saw the lovely streets and boulevards and parks and public buildings and the folk on the outside, but he did not see what they really were. Now, the sin of this city is so great that God is going to judge it. God is going to destroy the city.

Now, let's draw a pretty sharp line here. There is today a gray area where there is a new attitude towards sin today, and it's not really as black as we once thought it was, and the church today is compromised until it's even pitiful. Right now, the press is reporting in Southern California that we have a church made up of those that are homosexuals, and the pastor of the church, lo and behold, is also one they all admitted.

Now, may I say to you, the lesson of Sodom and Gomorrah is a lesson for this generation. Now, God's not accepting this kind of a church. The idea seems to be today that you can become a child of God and you can continue on in sin.

God says that's impossible. You cannot do that, and this city of Sodom is an example of that, that you cannot continue in sin. Paul asks the question, shall we continue in sin? And the answer is, God forbid, or let it not be.

Paul says that's impossible, and it's this idea today that you can be a Christian and go on in sin is a tremendous mistake, and especially make light of it as I judge it's being made in this particular case. Now, that's what they were doing in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, God destroyed these cities.

Now, don't say we have a primitive view of God here and we have a better one today because even after all, Jesus received sinners. He sure did, but when he got through with them, he had changed them. The harlot that came to him was no longer in that business.

When she came to God, she changed. That's the thing that happened to other sinners. A publican came to him, and he left the seed of custom.

He gave up that which was crooked, and he came to the Lord. I tell you, my friend, if you've come to Christ, and I don't care what this generation is saying, and I recognize there'll be a great many people write and explain to me that we're living in a new day and I need to wake up. Well, my friend, we are living in a new day, but it just happens to be Sodom and Gomorrah all over again.

Now, I begin reading at verse 6, and probably I should do it without comment. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him. Now, the men of Sodom were outside the door, asking that these guests that he had, that they be turned out to them.

Verse 7, And said, I pray you, brethren, do not sow wickedly. That's the way Lot looked at it, and he'd been down there a long time, and it wasn't new morality to him, just old sin. Verse 8, Behold now, I have two daughters, which have not known man.

Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as good is in your eyes. Only unto these men do nothing, for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. When a man entertained a guest, in that day he was responsible for him.

And the thing was that he was willing to make this kind of a sacrifice to protect them. And they said, this is what that crowd outside, stand back. And they said again, this one fellow came in to sojourn, he'll needs be a judge.

You see, Lot was advancing in the political area there. Now will we deal worse with thee than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.

But the man put forth their hand, pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. And if they hadn't, of course, Lot and these men would have been destroyed, because that was the thought of these men.