Sermon Tone Analysis

From Sodom to Carina Brisbane

tells one of the most dramatic stories in all the Bible.

Even people who never go to church know that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a flood of burning sulphur.

They have heard about Lot’s encounter with the angelic visitors, the desperate last-second escape, and the strange, sad tale of Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt.

As if that weren’t enough, tucked away at the end of the chapter is a sordid story of sexual perversion.

No wonder Hollywood has made several movies based on this chapter, it has all they are looking for.But there is another angle to consider.

For many years skeptics proclaimed this story a legend because no one could find the remains of Sodom and Gomorrah.

However, in recent years new excavations at the southern end of the Dead Sea have uncovered ruins of ancient cities built near tar pits.

These cities appear to have been suddenly destroyed in a devastating fire, which fits the description found in .

Lot Makes Good

As this chapter opens we find Lot sitting in the gateway of the city (v.1).

To us that might not mean much, but to ancient readers it meant that Lot had finally “arrived.”

Although he was a nephew of Abraham who grew up in the rural areas, he had come to the big city and done well.

In fact, to sit at the city gates means that he had become one of the chief rulers of the city, something like a modern alderman or village trustee.

The people brought their concerns to the city gate where all the leaders gathered for discussion and settling of disputes.So now Lot, the man of God has become a leader in a city given over to moral perversion.

A study of his life reveals a slow, sad, downward spiral:

First, he looked at Sodom ().

Second, he lived near Sodom ().

Third, he lived in Sodom ().

Fourth, he ruled over Sodom ().

I pause to comment that no doubt Lot meant well.

I don’t think he even intended to do harm to himself or his family by moving to the “Big City.”

Perhaps he even hoped to do some good by mingling with the pagans who lived there.

As I have pointed out in an earlier sermon, Christians must be in Sodom because they can save Sodom.

So there is nothing intrinsically wrong with living in a sinful city.

However, motivation makes all the difference.

Some people go to the mission field because they are called by God; others live in the world because they love the world and its attractions.

Lot seems to belong to the latter category.

Lot and the Angels

The Bible tells us that two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening.

Because he was a gracious man, and because it was the custom of the day, Lot invited the two men to spend the night with him.

He had no idea they were angels.

This was simply an act of hospitality.As word spread throughout Sodom that two men had come to visit Lot, the true character of the city becomes clear.

Verses 4-5 tell the story so plainly that little comment is needed:

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.

They called to Lot, ‘‘Where are the men who came to you tonight?

Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

The men of Sodom were homosexuals who wanted to have sex with the two strangers.

From this shameful episode comes the word “sodomy” and “sodomites” to describe both the sin and the perpetrators of homosexual acts.

It would be hard to find a more perverse, disgusting picture in all the Bible.

Here are hundreds of men inflamed with lust coming after two visitors to their city.In response to their lewd cries, Lot does something even more terrible.

He offers to give the mad mob his two virgin daughters to do with as they will (vv.

6-8).

But the mob would have none of it.

Inflamed with unnatural desire, they again demanded that the two men be given to them.

In response, the angels pulled Lot back inside and then struck the crowd blind (vv.

9-11).

“Hurry!

Hurry!”

At this point Lot begins to realize who these two visitors are.

They have been sent by God to destroy the city.

But first they must give Lot and his family one last chance to escape.

When Lot tells his sons-in-law about the coming judgment, they laughed, thinking he was joking.

As the dawn breaks, the time has come for Lot, his wife, and their two daughters to leave Sodom.

The angels now deliver one final message:

With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ‘‘Hurry!

Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

()

Verse 16 adds a sad and tragic phrase—

"When he hesitated.”

Lot hesitated because he loved the city of Sodom.

Here were his friends, his neighbors, his co-workers.

Here were all the pleasures of the world.

Here was the good life he and his wife so much enjoyed.

Here he could indulge himself.

Never mind that he himself was no homosexual.

Never mind that he personally found homosexuality repulsive.

He would live with that ugliness simply because he loved all that Sodom represented.In biblical terms, Lot loved the world.

Not as in

“God so loved the world"(), but as in “love not the world, or anything in the world” ().

God’s love is pure and redemptive and completely separate from evil, but the love 1John warns against is the love of one who loves all the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

Most of us have heard that we should be in the world but not of the world.

D. L. Moody illustrated that point by saying that, "when the boat is in the water, that’s good.

But when the water is in the boat, that’s bad."

Lot hesitated because the water was definitely in the boat.

He loved Sodom so much that he was nearly destroyed with it.

His Tact Nearly Cost Him His Soul

Don Cole offers this helpful analysis of Lot’s dilemma:

Lot was the soul of tact, but it nearly cost him his soul.

He was tactful when he should have been indignant, if not downright angry.

There are occasions when it’s better to be politely blunt than tactful.There are occasions when it’s better to be politely blunt than tactful.As a politician, he was accustomed to the speech of conciliation; he had a smooth tongue.

The rub is that this occasion called for holy indignation, not smooth words; reproof, not persuasive words of conciliation.Lot’s weakness lay in his lack of conviction.

His sense of the sinfulness of sin sufficed to make him uncomfortable in Sodom, but it was not enough to make Sodom unendurable.

He had adjusted to it quite nicely; otherwise, he would have left, for he certainly had had opportunity to do so.

Lack of conviction had kept him there, whereas profound conviction kept his uncle Abraham in the promise land, notwithstanding his years of disappointment.In that city of perverts, Lot’s sense of values had become perverted.

In fact, he was so enamored with the world that he begged to be allowed to go to a nearby town instead of fleeing into the mountains (vv.

18-20).

Perhaps he couldn’t bear to leave the evil city or perhaps he didn’t quite believe what the angels were saying.

In any case, they agreed because they couldn’t do anything until he and his family left Sodom.

Unspeakable Sin

Several things now happens in quick succession:

First, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed in broad daylight by burning sulfur ().

Second, Lot’s wife looked back at the destruction and was became a pillar of salt ().

Third, the next morning Abraham stood and surveyed the smoking ruins ).

Fourth, the daughters of Lot got their father to drink wine, and while he was drunk, they committed incest with him ().

This last episode is so sordid that one might wonder why the Bible includes it.

On one level it explains the origin of the Moabites and Ammonites—nations that were perpetual enemies of Israel.

On another level it shows how polluted Lot’s family had become.

Even though Sodom is destroyed, the spirit of the city is reborn in the cave.

Thus do we learn that the problem is ultimately in the human heart.

Cities aren’t evil, people are evil.

Unless the heart is radically changed, you can destroy every city in Australia but the sin of the nation would be reborn in a wheat field.

Why God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

As we stand back and look at the events recorded in , several questions come to mind.