Sermon notes November 23rd, 2025

 

GENESIS 19

Sodom’s Depravity

According to the Bible, the people of Sodom were profoundly wicked, described in Genesis "exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord". Their evil was a combination of severe social and moral failings, and it came to a head in a pervasive atmosphere of corruption and a complete lack of regard for others. Key aspects of their behavior, according to various biblical texts, included:

• Arrogance and Pride: The prophet Ezekiel states, "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16:49). This overindulgence and self-centeredness led to a proud and haughty attitude.
• Lack of Hospitality and Cruelty: Hospitality was a sacred duty in the ancient Near East, but the people of Sodom were notoriously inhospitable and cruel to strangers and the vulnerable. When two angelic visitors arrived in the city, Lot welcomed them into his home. The men of the city, young and old, gathered around the house and demanded that Lot "bring them out to us, that we may know them" (Genesis 19:5). This demand was a threat of gang rape and sexual violence intended to humiliate and abuse the foreigners, a severe violation of guest-host norms.
• Sexual Immorality and Perversion: The New Testament book of Jude refers to the cities giving themselves over to "sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh" (Jude 1:7). This is often interpreted as a reference to a widespread practice of homosexual acts, specifically the non-consensual, violent nature described in Genesis 19. 
• Other interpretations suggest the "strange flesh" refers to the attempt to have relations with non-human (angelic) beings.
• Injustice and Idleness: Other prophets also condemned Sodom for sins such as adultery, lies, strengthening the hands of evildoers, and generally not helping the poor and needy.
• Total Depravity: The people of Sodom were so universally wicked that God told Abraham he would spare the city if even ten righteous people could be found there, but ultimately, only Lot and his two daughters were saved, indicating the total moral corruption of the city. 

Ultimately, the people of Sodom were considered evil because their society was characterized by profound moral corruption, violence, a total lack of compassion, and a general rebellion against God's laws, which eventually led to their destruction by divine judgment.

The last time we were together we had seen how Abraham tried to protect people who were not part of this wicked society. Maybe they were stuck there, maybe they wanted no part of all that was going on. Maybe. Let me propose to you that this place was so wicked, that no moral person would have stayed, they would flee for the protection of their families’ lives. I believe the people who were there were all in and bought into this incredible wickedness because they were given over to a debase mind. Any stranger who walked into Sodom and Gomorrah just for rest or supplies were to risk their very lives. We will see this for ourselves in the very first scriptures of chapter 19. 

• There are people today who say this is why they would never serve a god who could do such a thing aganst humanity. They try to use this story and the great flood against God. But I’m telling you, our God is a merciful God full of grace and He is longsuffering. He loves His creation so much that He gave Himself to save you and me. Jesus addresses these people in Luke 17.

Luke 17:26-31                                               New King James Version

26   And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: 

27   They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 

28   Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built. 

29   but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 

30   Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

31   “In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away. And likewise, the one who is in the field, let him not turn back. 

32   Remember Lot’s wife. 

33   Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 

• The Lord taught that the days immediately preceding that glorious event (Second Coming of Christ) would be like the days of Noah. People ate, they drank, they married, and they were given in marriage. These things are not wrong; they are normal, legitimate human activities. The evil was that men lived for these things and had no thought or time for God. After Noah and his family entered the ark, the flood came and destroyed the rest of the population. So, the Second Coming of Christ would mean judgment for those who reject His offer of mercy.

 

Genesis 19                                                  New King James Version

1   Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. 

• There was a steady progression of compromise in Lot’s life. He went from looking toward Sodom (Genesis 13:10), to pitching his tent toward Sodom. (Genesis 13:12)
• To now living in Sodom (Genesis 14:12), and losing everything when Sodom was attacked. Now, back at the infamous city, Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, indicating he was a civic leader.
• The gate area of an ancient city was sort of a town-hall where the important men of the city judged disputes, conferred with one another, and supervised those who entered and left the city.
• Lot himself was a righteous man who was grieved by the sin he saw around him (2 Peter 2:7-8), but because of his deep compromise few of his family and none of his friends were saved. Compromise destroyed his testimony.

Genesis 19:2-5

2   And he said, “Here now, my lords, please turn in to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you may rise early and go on your way.”                                                                                      And they said, “No, but we will spend the night in the open square.”

3   But he insisted strongly; so, they turned into him and entered his house. Then he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4   Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. 

5   And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.”

• Like all other sinners, a homosexual or lesbian can be saved if he or she repents of sin and receives the Lord Jesus Christ as personal Savior. God loves the gay person and the lesbian even if He hates their sin.
• There is a difference between being a practicing homosexual and having a homosexual tendency. It is the practice that the Bible condemns, not the orientation. There are many who have an attraction to their own sex but refuse to give in to it. 
• By the power of the Spirit, they have disciplined themselves to resist the temptation and to live in purity. Many Christian persons of homosexual orientation have regarded their condition with sorrow and contrition, but, unable to change, have drawn on the Spirit for the power of forbearance and chastity, which is sanctification indeed …. In commitment to Christ, they have offered an enduring inner blemish for God’s use that divine power may be perfected in human weakness.
• Some blame God that they were born with this tendency, but the fault does not lie with God but with human sinfulness. Every fallen child of Adam has evil tendencies. Some have a weakness in one area, some in another. The sin is not in being tempted, but in yielding to the temptation.
• There is deliverance from homosexuality or lesbianism, as there is from any form of lust. However, ongoing godly counseling assistance is very important in nearly every case.
• Christians should accept gays and lesbians as persons without approving their lifestyle. Because they are people for whom Christ died, believers should seek in every possible way to win them to a life of “holiness, without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Hebrews 12:14                                                New King James Version

14   Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord:

Genesis 19:6-8

6   So Lot went out to them through the doorway, shut the door behind him, 

7   and said, “Please, my brethren, do not do so wickedly!

• This was a difficult argument for Lot to make. He and the men of Sodom had a completely different standard for deciding what was wicked and what was not. The men of Sodom thought they were pursuing pleasure, and did not care that Lot thought it was wicked

8   See 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 as you wish; only do nothing to these men, since this is the reason they have come under the shadow of my roof.”

• Lot’s offer to the mob was horrible and cannot be justified. The men of Sodom showed a shocking demonstration of depravity, but we are just as shocked at the willingness of Lot to give up his daughters to the mob as we are at the sinful desire of the mob itself.
• We understand this terrible description a little more when we consider the low place of women in the pre-Christian world. 
• The very high place of any guest in one’s home. Under the sacred obligations of hospitality, it was often understood that a guest was to be protected more than one’s own family

Genesis 19:9-12

9   And they said,(Evel men) “Stand back!” Then they said, “This one came into a stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge; now we will deal worse with you than with them.” So, they pressed hard against the man Lot and came near to break down the door. 

10   But the men(angels) reached out their hands and pulled Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

• It must have taken great, perhaps supernatural, strength to do what the angels did at the door. Perhaps for the first time, Lot began to understand that his guests were more than men.

11   And they (Angels) struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they became weary trying to find the door.

12   Then the men (Angels) said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and whomever you have in the city—take them out of this place! 

• Spurgeon saw something instructive in the angels’ question, “have you anyone else here?” The question shows the concern we should have for the salvation of not only ourselves, but our whole house.

Genesis 19:13-17

13   For we will destroy this place, because the outcry against them has grown great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.”

Genesis 19:14

14   So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who had married his daughters, and said, “Get up, get out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city!” But to his sons-in-law he seemed to be joking.

• This was the clear effect of Lot’s life of compromise. When he spoke with utmost seriousness to his sons-in-law about the judgment of God, they did not believe him. Not even they would be saved from the judgment to come.
• The life of Lot shows us that it is possible to have a saved soul and a wasted life. Lot would be rescued, but his life would accomplish nothing, as in 1 Corinthians 3:15

1 Corinthians 3:15                                           New King James Version

15   If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Genesis 19:15-19

15   When the morning dawned, the angels urged Lot to hurry, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” 

16   And while he lingered, the men took hold of his hand, his wife’s hand, and the hands of his two daughters, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. 

• Too much of Lot’s heart was in Sodom, so he did not have an urgency to leave the city. A lack of urgency to obey God (even when it is necessary and good) is a common sign of compromise and a backslidden condition.

17   So it came to pass, when they had brought them outside, that he said, “Escape for your life! Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plain. Escape to the mountains, lest you be destroyed.”

18   Then Lot said to them, “Please, no, my lords! 

19   Indeed now, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil overtake me and I die. 

Genesis 19:20-30

20   See now, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one; please let me escape there (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.”

21   And he said to him, “See, I have favored you concerning this thing also, in that I will not overthrow this city for which you have spoken. 

22   Hurry, escape there. For I cannot do anything until you arrive there.”

Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.

23   The sun had risen upon the earth when Lot entered Zoar. 

24   Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens. 

25   So He overthrew those cities, all the plain, all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

26   But his wife looked back behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

27   And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 

28   Then he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain; and he saw, and behold, the smoke of the land which went up like the smoke of a furnace. 

29   And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.

30   Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave. 

• We don’t know why Lot and his daughters became dissatisfied with Zoar, or why the people of Zoar became dissatisfied with them. Yet for some reason, they left the small city of Zoar and went to the mountains and dwelt in a cave

 

 

 

 

Genesis 19:31-38

31   Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. 

32   Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” 

• Lot and his family lost everything in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Even so, they quickly had a stock of wine. They either brought this with them or they obtained it in Zoar.

33   So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

• We may be uncomfortable with the idea that the Bible includes the record of such disgraceful sins. Pray for me I’m the one who has to present it and I find it disgusting. 

34   It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.” 

• “Ironically, in his own drunkenness Lot carried out the shameful act that he himself had suggested to the men of Sodom: he lay with his own daughters.”

35   Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

• This is a remarkable — and seemingly desperate sin from Lot’s daughters. Some suggest that they believed that the whole world had perished with Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was now their responsibility to repopulate the earth through their father. However, their brief time in Zoar was enough to show there were other people.

36   Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father. 

37   The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day.

 38   And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. 

• Their descendants would become enemies and obstacles for Israel, just like the descendants of Ishmael. Lot’s life ended in ruin in regard to the past, the present, and the future — and all because of his love for the world and the compromise that came from that love.

 

Back to Luke 17

In that day, he who is on the housetop, and his goods are in the house, let him not come down to take them away: When Noah’s flood came, one could imagine people trying to vainly keep their possessions safe while they themselves perished. Even so, if one is ready for Jesus’ coming, they will not be concerned about the material things left behind. The heart must not be on what is in the house, but what is in heaven.

• Let him not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife: Because she disobeyed God and looked back on Sodom — presumably with regret and perhaps with longing — Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt as she and her family escaped judgment. Jesus here cautioned His followers to not look back at a perishing world, ripe for judgment, but to set their eyes on the deliverance God sets before them.