Good morning, brethren. Let's
be turning to Genesis chapter 19. Now, there's several great
themes that are running through this chapter. And last time we
saw the sudden, the nearness and the sudden destruction that
was hanging over the heads of the people of Sodom. to be destroyed
by the Lord. And Peter tells us at this time
that God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes,
making them an example to those that should after live ungodly. Today what I want to focus on
is the sudden and total salvation of God's people by sovereign
grace. And that's seen in how the Lord
delivered Lot from the punishment that was coming justly upon the
world. Peter also writes of this in
2 Peter 2.9 saying the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly. out of temptations, and to reserve
the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. And so that's
what we're going to see today. But I want to begin just by bringing
our attention just to help us to see and to know what our Lord
tells us about ourselves, that we need salvation. None of us
is godly by our own works. None of us makes ourselves godly
by the things that we do. And then God takes notice of
us and says, oh, they're doing a good job. I think I'll help
them along. No, we're saved from beginning
to end by the grace of God. Every sinner that is saved by
God is saved entirely by the grace of God. And that's very
hard. That's impossible. For this man,
this old man of flesh, to believe and to agree and to understand
what the Lord is saying. But he's showing us here in this
text that in this heart, in my natural heart, and this is true
of every one of you sitting here today, in this natural heart
is enmity. There is violence against God. There is a hatred against the
true and living God. And that's what we see here in
these men in Sodom. Now, we tend to recognize heinous
and wicked crimes, and we reserve that word wickedness and evil
for the most wicked things that men do against other men. And
we do that because it puts off That's sin from us. We like to
minimize what we are by nature. We like to downplay the things
that we do, and the thoughts that we have, and the things
that we say, and the damage that we do to others. And we like
to put them off so that we can put it far from our own heart,
so that we don't have to look at it in that way. But the testimony
of scripture is that all are under sin. Just read the Old
Testament, even read the New Testament, and we see that God
never hides from us our own wicked works, our sinful works, our
unbelief, our complete shortcomings to the grace of God or to the
glory of God. But Jeremiah says it this way,
Jeremiah 17 9, he tells us that the heart is deceitful above
all things. and desperately wicked who can
know it. He's stating that as a statement
of fact. That's true of us. That's what
we are by nature. This heart is deceitful and desperately
wicked who can know it. And this desperate wickedness
manifests itself in the hatred and the violence that we see
directed toward Lot and toward these men, which are angels,
that the Lord had sent to destroy the city. And the reason, and
it's true of us all by nature. It's true of us all by nature. And so what we see, what the
Lord is showing us is that the natural man hates the true and
living God. He has violence in his heart.
He's enmity against God. God is his enemy. And he looks
at God with unbelief and mistrust, and he hates the true and living
God. Now, a lot of people don't see that because they think of
God, and they think they like God, and they love God, and they
worship God. But the truth is, by nature,
we're loving and worshiping and rejoicing in an idol god, a god
of our imagination, and not the true and living God. And so here,
this wickedness is displayed in the hearts of the Sodomites,
first against God's messengers that he sent, and then against
Lot, and then against Lot. And Lot went out there to try
and reason with these men. And he said the first thing out
of his mouth was, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Do not so wickedly. They wanted
to take those men and do wicked things to those men that were
in Lot's house. And then he went on to say a
very compromising message, a very worldly message, a message full
of flesh and carnal reasoning to try and take these men down
from what they wanted to do by offering up his daughters. And
it was a compromising message. But they didn't even hear that.
They couldn't get past the fact that he shone a light on their
works by calling what they wanted to do wicked. wicked and they
couldn't get past that and they hated him for it because he's
shown the light on their sins and that's what the Lord does
in his word. He shines his light upon our hearts and then we see
the wickedness of our works. In Genesis 19, 9, when he said
that their works were wicked, they said, stand back. And they
said again, this one fellow came into sojourn, and he will need
to be a judge. Now we will deal worse with thee
than with them. And they pressed sore upon the
man, even lot, and came near to break the door. That's the
madness. That's the violence that's in
the heart of man. That's what the Lord is showing
us. This is what's in our natural heart. And they did that against
the light that Lot shone. And it was a dim light. It was
a very dim light that he shone. But the reaction gives us a sense
of the evil nature of this heart. It shows us what's in this heart.
If God leaves us to ourselves, this is what we are, what we
see here in these men. And you think of the violence
that they were going to do against Lot, and then listen to what
Paul says about sin and death. In Romans 5, 12, he said, wherefore
as by one man, in Adam, sin entered into the world, and death by
sin. And so death passed upon all
men, for that all have sinned. And so the scriptures are telling
us there's a violence, there's an overwhelming violence that's
in this heart. I was recently reminded, I don't
know, maybe because of the time of year, but maybe over a decade
now, many years back, I think in 2000, though, there was a
tidal wave, a tsunami, they called it, in Southeast Asia that struck
many countries right on Christmas Day or the day after Christmas.
And I didn't know this then, but 225,000 people lost their
lives in that disaster. when the water came in, just
rushing in. That's our heart. That's the
violence. That's the rushing and the hatred
and the enmity that's in man. And when you think of Adam, he
destroyed more than 225,000 people. He plunged his whole race into
ruin, into spiritual death, when he sinned and rebelled against
God, and we in him, in the garden. And so death passed upon all
men. We're all corrupted. We're all dead spiritually. And
so, what the Lord is saying, when sin came in, it did violence
against us. It shredded any life, it destroyed
any integrity, anything good that we had, any fellowship we
had with God, it was destroyed, knocked out, ruined, its life
taken. Taken from us, taken from us.
And so Paul adds that to be carnally minded is death. That's what
we are by nature. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. And you look at these men in
Sodom, there's no peace in their heart. They weren't saying, oh,
you kidder. You're just fooling around. Come
on, step aside. No, they wanted to kill him.
They wanted revenge, because he's shown a light, calling their
deeds wicked. Because the carnal mind is enmity
against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. And this is how the natural man
approaches God, thinking that he's OK. He's a pretty good guy. And he just needs to adjust a
few things and tweak a few things and give his heart to Jesus,
and everything will be reconciled. Jesus is just a signpost to him.
Jesus is just a beacon that says, get yourself saved, give your
heart to Jesus, do better, you can do this, God is for you. And that's not at all what Christ
came, when Christ came, it declares to us that we're sinners, dead
in trespasses and sins and cannot save ourselves. We can't deliver
ourselves and there's hatred in our hearts to the true and
living God. And so, when we see what they
did to Lot, if they did that to Lot, whose light and understanding
was so small, so dim at that time, if they did that, what
would they do to God if they could get their hands on Him?
Well, we know what they would do to the true and living God
if they could get their hands on Him, because the Lord allowed
Himself to be taken by wicked hands in order to obtain eternal
redemption for His sinful people who cannot save themselves, who
have no righteousness of their own, who have nothing to give
to the true and living God. We are dead in trespasses and
sins. We need to be quickened, made
alive by the grace of God, given freely in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Peter tells us that Christ
was delivered by the determinant counsel and for knowledge of
God, but that we have taken and crucified him. We crucified him. We put him to death because that's
the hatred in this heart. we slew him, whom God hath raised
up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible
that he should be holden of it." And so now we're beginning to
see this is the violence in the heart of man. But here in this
account, we also see the violent salvation. the glory of God in
delivering His child out of the jaws of death, out of the hands
of justice, out of that punishment and wrath of God which we justly
earned, which was our due, He delivered us by His grace and
mercy when He went to the cross laying down His life as the sacrifice
of His people to bear their sin away, to bear their violence
that we deserved by taking our place on that tree. being made
a curse for us, to deliver us from the curse of the law. The scriptures say that God hath
made Christ to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. You can't save
yourselves by your works. You can't approach unto God in
your righteousnesses. They're wicked works. They're
filthy works. God doesn't receive us in our
own works. He receives His child in Christ,
in the blood of Christ alone. His blood is sufficient to save
even the vilest of sinners. He went the vilest. Now, this
violent and wicked world, it's going to suffer a violent punishment,
a violent death, a violent overthrow. We saw it in Noah's day. We see
it when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. And when Christ returns
to the world, there's going to be a lot of people who die in
their sins. And we're told that our God is
a consuming fire, a consuming fire, but That people for whom
Christ was slain, they are the redeemed of the Lord, and nothing
shall destroy them. They will not be destroyed. You
that believe Christ, you that hope in Christ, you that trust
the mercy and grace of God given freely in Christ, You have a
good hope. You have an assurance that nothing
shall happen to you. You shall not be destroyed with
the wicked. Their punishment is not your
punishment. You have life. You have life. And so we see here, going back
to verse 10, I know we saw this last week, but look at it again,
verse 10. But the men, that is the angels that were in Lot's
house, seeing what the wicked were to do to him, and they were
pressing against Lot, they were going to rip him apart, but the
men put forth their hand and pulled Lot into the house to
them and shut the door. That's the glorious image of
what Christ did when he laid down his life. He snatched his
people out of death, out of the punishment and wrath of God,
and gave us life. He delivered us from that death. He delivered his people from
that death and darkness and destruction under the wrath of God. Paul said it this way in Colossians
1, 13 and 14, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness,
and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in whom
we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of
sins. What the Lord is showing us here
when they grabbed Lot and pulled him into the house is that Lot
didn't save himself. Lot didn't deliver himself. Lot
didn't turn his heart. Lot didn't turn and run inside
the house. They had to grab him and pull
him in. And he was about to be consumed
by sin, consumed by death. He would have been swallowed
up and destroyed with it. But the Lord delivered him. That's
the grace of our God in Christ. He snatched you out of being
destroyed and consumed by sin. That's what he did for all his
people. That's the picture. If God had
left a lot to himself to figure it out and to get himself out
of there, he'd have died. He'd have been destroyed. He'd
have never have made it. He would have been consumed.
And so we too would have been swallowed up by sin if left to
ourselves. And so we're saved by the grace
of God. Christ has delivered us, we've
obtained eternal forgiveness by Christ and Christ alone. For
by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. And then as we go on in this
chapter, we see that the Lord never leaves his child. When
he saves his child, he delivers them from darkness. He delivers
us from not knowing the true and living God unto a knowledge
and an understanding of what he has done for us. He doesn't
leave his child thinking they've saved themselves, that we've
delivered ourselves, that we've done something to please God
and to get God to save us. No, he shows us, I did it all. The Lord says, I did it all.
Everything you need, I've provided everything in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I'm not laying one burden on
you. I'm providing everything for you in my Son. Everything. And so these messengers, when
they pulled him in, what did they do? They repeated the urgent
message. That's what the Lord does. He
repeats this message. He tells you that left to yourselves,
so into this flesh is death. It's death. There is no life
in what this world is doing. There is no salvation in what
we do for ourselves. It's death. Look to my son. Look to my servant whom I've
sent. Look to my faithful son who saved his people from their
sins. Trust him. Believe him. And so
they repeated this message that God was going to destroy Sodom
and Gomorrah. And when the morning arose, then
the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife and thy
two daughters, which are here, lest thou be consumed in the
iniquity of the city or the punishment of the city. And so there's the
order of God's grace. He snatches us out by Christ.
And then he tells us, Christ has already accomplished our
redemption. The debt's been paid. And therefore, the spirit is
sent to seek you out. Therefore, the word is sent to
call you and to deliver you from darkness, to wake up, arise,
get out, flee the city, flee to Christ. Flee to Christ, the
mountain of your salvation. And so that's the morning which
arose. The light of Christ shines upon us, gives us light in our
darkness, opens the prison door, and says, sinner, show yourselves. Come out of that darkness. Come
to Christ. Look to him. Believe him. Verse
16, and while he lingered, well, let that sink in. He's hearing
that destruction is ready to break out upon the city, and
he's lingering. He's just doddering around and
not sure what to take, what to leave, what to do. Doesn't know
what he's going to do. He's lingering. He's lingering. The men laid hold upon his hand
and upon the hand of his wife and upon the hand of his two
daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him. For his sake, they
were brought out. And they brought him forth and
set him without the city. And so that's why we say it's
a violent act of salvation. We linger. We play around and
toy around in this world like it's all fine and dandy and there's
no punishment. wrath coming upon the wicked
and we just get consumed with our lives. With the weeds and
the toils and the snares of this life and we get so taken up with
them and we're lingering. We're lingering and so they had
to grab him out of that city. And that's true of us all. We
need to be grabbed by the Lord, delivered by the Lord, hear that
word again and again and again, and be taken by the hand and
pulled out from our death and our destruction. We linger in
the plane. And so our Lord even said, he
said, oh, fools and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have spoken unto you. We're just like the disciples.
We're foolish in our hearts, we're foolish in our minds, and
we're slow to believe what the Lord has told us. And if you
know the Lord, you know that it's true. We're not saved because
of our goodwill, because of our good works, because we fixed
ourselves and got things right. The Lord saves us in grace and
mercy, delivering us, taking us by the hand, because we're
lingerers. We linger in the plain. We linger
thinking nothing's going to happen. We're saved by the forceful grace
of God that rips us out of the clutches of sin and death. That's what our Lord tells us
in John 6, 44. He said, no man can come to me
except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And that word
is drag. If you look at it, every time
it's used, it's about dragging up a net. And Peter went when
the Lord said, help your brethren with the net. He went and dragged
up the net. That's the word. We've been dragged to Christ.
We've been delivered from death. It's written in the prophets,
and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore,
that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. And it's not as though he leaves
us to kick and scream and fight the whole way. He delivers us
from death and he turns our hearts. He gives us a new heart and a
new spirit. He makes us to live in him and
fellowship with him being led of his spirit. But the power
is not of us. The power is of that same resurrection
power that raised Christ from the dead. When it says in Psalm
110 verse three, thy people shall be willing in the day of thy
power Notice he goes on to speak of Christ's resurrection in that
same verse. He says, "...in the beauties
of holiness, from the womb of the morning, thou hast the due
of thy youth." And so it is that our Lord, by His resurrection
power, raises us up from spiritual death to know Him, to see Him,
to hear Him with the circumcised ear, to believe Him, with a circumcised
heart and to hear that word by his resurrection power. And so
he gives us faith, the faith whereby you believe is not of
the flesh. We know the works of the flesh,
their anger and wrath and divisions and strife and hatred and emulations. That's what the flesh brings.
But faith is of the spirit. It's a fruit of the spirit. It
cannot be of the flesh. That's enmity and death against
the true and living God. Faith is of the spirit. It's
of his grace. And now, as we go through here,
we see the faith that he works in his child, in Lot. And it's
hard to see. It's hard. But it says, but our
Lord is telling us that a bruised reed he shall not break, a smoking
flax he shall not quench. When you have a little fire and
you're creating a fire, You don't stamp out something that's smoking.
You blow on it, you add tinder to the fire, and you get it going
up good. That's what Christ does. He's
saving His people, not destroying His people. He's bringing them
into fellowship with the true and living God, not cutting us
off. He's making us to know what He's done for us. And so first
the angel tells Lot in verse 17, escape for thy life, look
not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain, escape
to the mountain, lest thou be consumed. Now, Lot wasn't able
to lean wholly upon that word. And it says in verse 18 and 19,
Lot said unto them, oh, not so, my lord. Escape to the mountain,
not so, my lord. Hold on. Hold on. Behold, now
thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified
thy mercy which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life. And I cannot escape to the mountain,
lest some evil take me, and I die. That sounds like an odd thing.
Lott's saying, now you just delivered me mightily from the destruction
that you're bringing upon Lott. You saved me. You snatched me
out of the hands of death. You delivered me. And you brought
me out. You delivered me from that city.
And you drug me out of there and got me out of there. But
I don't have anything. I don't have any food. I don't
have a tent. I don't have a bedroll. I don't
have anything to drink. I might die on the way. I might
die of fatigue or hunger. I don't know what's going to
happen to me up there. And it sounds silly because you're saying,
wait a minute, he just did the mighty thing and you're worried
about all the little things. And there again, we see ourselves
because we come here, we're gathered here in fellowship, confessing
and rejoicing what Christ has done for us and laying down his
life to deliver us from eternal damnation and to give us light
and life and liberty in Christ. And then we go home. And we worry
about the mortgage. And we worry about where our
next meal's coming from. And we worry about our clothes
and our cars and all these things. And we get troubled by them.
And we're fearful and afraid for those things. Just like Lot. And the Lord tells us over and
over again, why are ye so fearful, ye of little faith? Trust me. Trust me. If the flowers of the
field are clothed the way they are, and Solomon himself wasn't
clothed like they are, Doesn't the Lord know the things that
you have need of? And won't he provide for you richly according
to his grace? He never gives us just what we
need. He always gives in abundance and a fullness of what we need
in Him. And so then we see Lot, he pleaded
for the Lord to accept his little request, his poor little request. It says in verse 20 and 21, behold,
now this city is near to flee unto, and it's a little one.
Not only a little city, but my request is just a little request.
It's one little request. Oh, let me escape thither. Is
it not a little one? And my soul shall live. And so
it's this tiny little request, he calls it, a little one. And
that request, we look at him, we say, that request is full
of unbelief. And yet, it also contains a tiny
amount of faith, just a little amount of faith in it. He's saying,
I know you can save me. And if you'll just let me go
to this little city here, I know I shall be safe. If you'll just
allow me, Lord, I know I shall be safe. And the angel said unto
him, see, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that
I will not overthrow this city for the which thou hast spoken. You know, as I thought about
that, was reminded of something that our Lord says to us concerning
little faith. He has a word for us concerning
little faith, little faith which moves mountains. And he said,
if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto
this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove,
and nothing shall be impossible unto you. What he's saying there
in light of Lot's request is, if you can't flee to the mountain,
but you believe, you trust me, and you seek me, I'll move the
mountain of salvation closer to you. I'll deliver you. I'll
provide for you everything you need. He works that in his people. And he blesses his people, though
our faith be little. And that gives me comfort because
I don't have a lot to boast in. I have nothing to glory in except
the Lord Jesus Christ. I shouldn't even say I don't
have a lot. I have nothing to boast in save Jesus Christ. And I'm thankful for the faith,
albeit very small at times. I'm thankful for the faith that
he gives because even that little faith is sufficient to save His
people, because salvation is not in us, it's entirely in Christ. And faith cannot look anywhere
but to the Lord Jesus Christ. And He's sufficient to save to
the uttermost all that come unto Him by faith. By faith, that
faith which He gives to His people. So flee to the rock. That mountain
is near. He's done graciously. In sending Christ, we can't save
ourselves with the mountain of the law. He saved us by bringing
that salvation near to our hearts, by giving us the rock which is
Christ, and tells us to flee to Him, to look to Him. We're
told that in Christ a man shall be as in hiding place from the
wind. and a covert from the tempest,
as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock
in a weary land." That's Christ. You that believe on Christ, you
are saved. You are delivered. You have nothing
to fear, nothing to be ashamed of. You won't be confounded in
that day. The Lord has provided everything
you need in Christ. And now it says in verse 22 and
23, haste thee, escape thither, for I cannot do anything till
thou become thither. Therefore the name of the city
was called Zoar. The sun was risen upon the earth
when Lot entered into Zoar. And that's a picture of Christ,
who rises with healing in his wings. And He brings His people
into that city, that everlasting city of His grace, of His mercy,
of His salvation, all by Him. And so the Lord wasn't finished
with Lot yet. We see that Lot did ultimately
leave that city and went to the mountain. He grew him in grace
and in the knowledge of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And
that's what he does for us. But he delivered us with a mighty
salvation. Don't think anything else. Don't
think that you've added or contributed anything to your salvation. It's
all of Christ. Give him all the glory. For of
God are ye in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. I pray the Lord
bless that word to your heart, brethren. Amen.