Genesis 18:16-19

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17 beginning at verse 28. And then we move on to Genesis, chapter 18.

We're going to share the reading because it's such a long one. So if you want to follow it on page 18.

When the men got up to leave, they looked down towards Sodom. Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. Then the Lord said, shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him so that he would direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.

Then the Lord said, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin is so grievous that I will go down and see if one what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.

The men turned away and went towards Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said, will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are 50 righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the 50 righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing.

To kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike? Far be it from you. Will you not judge? Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?

The Lord said, If I find 50 righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake. Then Abraham spoke up again. Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is 5 less than 50? Will you destroy the whole city for the lack of five people?

If I find 45 there, he said, I will not destroy it. Once again he spoke to him. What if only 40 are found there? He said, for the sake of 40, I will not do it. Then he said, may the Lord not be angry, but let me speak.

What if only 30 can be found there? He answered, I will not do it. If I find 30 there. Abraham said, now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only 20 can be found there?

He said, for the sake of 20, I will not destroy it. Then he said, may the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only 10 can be found There he answered, for the sake of 10, I will not destroy it. When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left and Abraham returned home.

Chapter 19.

Chapter 19 Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed the two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city when he saw them. He got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. My lords, he said, please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning. No, they answered, we will spend the night in the square.

But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom, and 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.

Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, no, my friends, don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof. Get out of your way, they replied, this fellow came here as a foreigner and now he wants to play.

The judge will treat you worse than them.

They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.

Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old with blindness, so that they could not find the door.

The two men said to Lot, do you have anyone else here, sons in law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against his people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.

So Lot went out and spoke to his sons in law who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city.

But his sons in law thought he was joking.

With the coming of the dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, hurry, take your wife and daughters who are here, and you will be swept away when the city is perched. When he hesitated, the men grasped his hands and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city. For the Lord was merciful to them. As soon as they had brought their knives, one of them said, flee for your lives. Don't look back.

And don't stop anywhere in the plain. Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away. But Lot said to them, no, my lord, please. Your servant has found favour in your eyes. And you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life.

But I can't flee to the mountains. This disaster will overtake me and I'll die. Look, here is a town near enough to run to. It's small. Let me flee to Is very small, isn't it?

Then my life will be spared.

He said to him, very well. I will grant you this request. I. I will not overthrow the town you speak of, but flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it. This is why the town has been called Zoar.

By the time Lot reached Zoah, the senate was over the land. Then the Lord rained down burning silver on Sodom and Gomorrah from the Lord out of the heavens. Thus he overthrew both cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities and also the vegetation in the land.

But Lot's wife looked back.

She became a pillar of salt.

Early the next morning, Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, towards all the land of the plain. And he saw dense smoke rising from the land like smoke from a furnace. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham. And he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

Lot and his two daughters left Zohar and settled in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zohar. He and his two daughters lived in a cave.

One day, the elder daughter said to the younger, our father is old, and there is no man round here to give us children. As is the custom all over the earth. Let us get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.

That night they got their father to drink wine, and the elder daughter went in and slept with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. The next day, the elder daughter said to the younger, last night I slept with my father. Let us get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and sleep with him, so we can preserve our family line through our father. So they got their father to drink wine that night also.

And the younger daughter went in and slept with him. Again, he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father. The elder daughter had a son and she named him Moab. He is the father of the Moabites of today.

The younger daughter also had a son and she named him Ban Ami. And he is the father of the Ammonites up today.

This is the word of the Lord, Verses 28 to 33, which if you follow the pew Bibles you'll find on page 1051, Jesus teaches His disciples about the coming of the Kingdom of God, verse 28.

It was the same day in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left, Sodom, fire and sulphur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, no one who is on the housetop with his possessions inside should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.

Remember Lot's wife.

Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it. And whoever loses their life will preserve it. These are the words of our Lord. Amen.

Thank you so much to James and Anne for reading that for us. Please do keep Genesis open. And if you need a bit of a stretch, that was a long passage and it's a difficult passage, isn't it? It's not a part of God's word that I have really relished looking at this week. In fact, if I'm honest, when we were first thinking about doing Genesis, it was this passage that I thought, I don't really want to preach through Genesis because of this passage.

And I'm really aware as we come to a difficult passage like this, for some of us, we will be outraged by God's actions. And some of us will be outraged by the actions that we see. And for many of us, we may be somewhere in between. Because the question this passage poses is the one that Abraham asks. Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?

Will not the God of the heavens do what is right? Let me pray for us.

Father, I pray by your spirit you would show us ourselves and show us who you are. And Father, as we see both of those things, we'll be moved from outrage to wonder. For I ask it in Jesus name. Amen.

Will not the Judge of all the world do right? I wonder if you've asked that Question. As you flicked on the news in 2026, in Sudan, 34 million people are in need of humanitarian help after a thousand days of war. You can imagine each of those people. I mean, we talk about a storm here, we talk about the church being cold, but they are longing even for a tent.

34,000 people. That's the same as half of the population of the uk. Will not the judge of the world do Right.

It's a question that might be asked by people in the drc, maybe their relative or their friend, or they are one of the three people a day who is a victim of conflict induced sexual violence. Three people a day. Will the judge of the world do what is right?

Oh, and it's not just the DRC. In Haiti, in 2026, just so far, over 1,000 women and girls have been raped or gang raped. Will not the judge of the world do what is right?

In Yemen, just this year, 110,000 children have been displaced from their homes. To put that in context, if you took every child in the school system in Sheffield, both primary and secondary, that's fewer than have been displaced in the Yemen. Oh, and that was just in one month.

Will not the judge of the world do what is right?

It's what would be on the lips, wouldn't it, of that child that we saw? Well, hopefully you didn't, because it was horrific in Gaza, killed by a drone attack on his way home from school and they put his school bag next to him. Will not the judge of the world do what is right?

Or in Hong Kong, where in one month over 400 people were arrested because of the security framework that came into place. And as their relatives long to find out what the future will bring, they cry, will not the judge of the world do what is right?

And here is the judge of the world in this passage. And here is Abraham. Abraham speaks with him. And what does he say? Verse 28, the Lord said, the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin is so grievous that I will go down.

What does the judge of all the world say? What is his character like? Well, he says, do you know, injustice cries out to me, just like with Cain and Abel. Remember Abel's blood crying out to the Lord? He says, injustice cries out to me.

If you were affected by those stats I just read, and I really hope you were, the reason that you were affected is because you are made in the image of a God who looks at the injustice of the world and it literally rings in his ears, the judge of the world says, it is called out to me.

Oh, and by the way, it's not just the big things that hit the news. Many of us here in this room carry burdens of injustice and brokenness. Maybe stuff that nobody else knows about, conversations that happened years ago, things that there seems like there's no justice for. And God says, do you know those things cry out to me? In fact, he does more.

He says, I'm going to go and I'm going to see if what they've done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I will know what's the judge of all the world like? What's his character like? It's a character that hears the pain and that goes and investigates. He goes and sees.

He knows.

But as he speaks like this, Abraham, Abraham pipes up. Abraham starts off and he says, okay, if you're a God who kind of feels the pain, let me just check that you are going to be just, you see, what if there are kind of 50 people who are actually righteous who are down there? When you go down, are you going to sweep them away? Let me just find out if this justice comes alongside mercy. I remember when I was a teacher, one of the ways in which people I was trained when I did the PGCE was that they would say, look, if you're in a class and something happens and you can't work out who, it's done and there's no way, one thing you can do is bring them all in at break time and keep them in until finally somebody will tell you, actually it was little Johnny who did this.

And actually, as a Christian, I hated that because what do you end up doing? You end up punishing the, the ones who are doing right alongside those who've done wrong. And Abraham goes, God, you can't do that. You're not going to do that, are you? And I used to think when I was reading this, it was a bit of like a bartering that he kind of barters with God.

Like, can I talk you down, God?

But if this is bartering, then God is the worst barterer in the world, right? Because the way the bartering works is that you go in, you. You go in low, they go in high, and you kind of work your way down. So Abe puts in his 50. He goes, if there are 50 people, will you destroy it?

And the way that bartering should work is that God should come back and go, how about 250? But he doesn't. Do you See this as you go through. What does God do? He goes, yeah, and Abraham kind of gets more and more squirmy, and he goes, okay, what about 45?

And God's like, yeah, 45. I. I won't destroy for 45. 30? Yeah, sure, 20. Yeah, go ahead.

I'm feeling awkward about this. What about 10? Yeah, sure. And one of the things that's perplexed me this week is Abe's kind of worked his way down. He's like a child trying to find the boundaries and going further and further.

And you kind of get to 10, and God's not pushed back at all yet. And you kind of go, keep going, Abe. Keep going. You see, what we find as we come to this, God, who's the judge of all the world, is not just that he feels this pain, but he's got a depth of mercy that even Abraham hasn't worked out yet. You've got a depth of mercy in this God that we never find the bottom of in Abraham's conversations.

And so what? Well, so off go these two to Sodom.

And having seen the character of God, we kind of need to see the character of Sodom. Let me just remind you about what Sodom is. Sodom was this place that was beautiful. A couple of chapters ago, we saw it was compared with the Garden of the Lord. It is a beautiful, lovely place.

Lot's chosen to go and live near it because it's so nice. And then a few chapters ago, we saw that it was a place that Lot had actually moved into. It's a place that's experienced God's kind of saving as Abraham went. And he got them when they were all carried away, and he saves them with the help of God. It's miraculous.

You can read about it in a few chapters again. And it's a place where Lot lives. And so we find that the two angels turn up and like uncle, like nephew, the nephew starts and he washes their feet, welcomes them in, and they say, oh, we're going to stay in the centre of the city. Now, in theory, this should be the safest place, right? Like a city is a city because it's got walls around it.

It should be a safe place to be. And yet Lot knows that that's not going to work. So he insists strongly that they come to his house. See, Sodom is a beautiful place, but it's a dangerous place. He prepares his quick meal, but before they've gone to bed are the men from every part of the city, both young and old, surrounded the house.

And they called out to Lot, where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we can have sex with them. I need to say, actually, that one of the ways that this passage has been looked at over many years is incredibly dangerous. You see, the problem is that often when you talk about Sodom, people think of one thing. They think of homosexuality.

And the problem is that actually what is going on here is utterly wrong. And it is not a brush that we can or should or should be in the same sentence as tarring those of our friends who are gay. The problem has sometimes come that lazily we've looked at Sodom and we've said, well, everybody who's gay is okay with. And that's certainly not true. It is certainly not true that what is going on here would be somehow more acceptable if it was to women rather than two men.

In fact, what Lot puts on the table is utterly abhorrent. What is being described here is a desire for violent gang rape. And it is horrific and it is awful, and it cannot be pinned on a particular sexuality. And where that has happened, we need to hold our hands up and say, no, no, this is wrong. This is wrong because of what is going on here.

You see, what is happening in Sodom is that Sodom is the epitome of everything that has gone wrong in Genesis so far. Let me just quickly show you. Remember Cain and Abel, and it was Abel's blood that cried out. So what goes on in Sodom cries out to God. Then what do you find you find violence?

What happened as the city was set up, as the city of Cain was set up? It was a place of violence and extreme violence and boasting about violence that happened. And in fact, just before the flood, what was the problem? Violence had covered the world. The kind of violence that we see as this mob try and break down the door.

We see this kind of violence as a problem, but it's worse than that. Do you remember back in chapter six, there was something weird that was going on with the sons of God marrying the daughters of men. And remember, they could just take whoever they wanted. And it was weird and something sexual was bad and wrong, and it brought about the flood, and God was saying, no, this is outrageous. What's going on here.

You've got two angels and you've got a bunch of humans who are wanting to have sex with the m. It's the brokenness that is there. And it's a brokenness that is sexual, that is violent, that is violent. And Sexual. It's a brokenness that is racist as well. Did you notice it?

Verse 9. Get out of our way, they replied, this fellow has come here as a foreigner and he wants to play. The judge will treat you worse than them. What are they saying? How dare you come in here to our country and tell us how to do things?

It's xenophobic. This is the problem of Babel actually working its way out, isn't it?

See, the problem of Sodom is far more than just one act.

The problem of Sodom goes further, in fact. Did he see it? God blinds the eyes of the crowd a bit like Babel. He confuses the language and disperses them. He blinds them to disperse them a bit.

And then what happens? Well, then the people, they won't believe that this judgement is coming.

The outcry's spoken of again. Lot goes and he speaks to his sons in law and says, God's going to destroy this place. They're not going to listen to him. They're not going to believe him. It's a bit like with the ark.

Why are you building an ark in the middle of the desert? God's not going to do this. You see, all of the problems thus far in Genesis are culminating in this place. It's everything that's broken in the world.

And so what does God do?

Will not the judge of the world do what is right? He says, I will put an end to that injustice and that brokenness.

And he rains down fire.

And the tricky thing is that if we are the kind of people who go, oh, do you know what? We're New Testament people. You know, we wait until God becomes a Christian in the New Testament and then we find Jesus. But what does Jesus do? He talks about this as a real thing.

He says, this is a picture of what's going to happen. Do you remember God spoke, He said, should I show Abraham what's going to happen?

Yeah, I'm not going to hide it. Because he's meant to be a blessing to the world.

And the truth is that as Jesus picks up on this passage, as we read this passage today, one day we will stand before the judge of the world and he will say to you, did I not tell you what is going to happen? One day justice will be done and we will say, do you know, the truth is you did.

And that's worrying. And part of the reason is that if we've looked at the character of God and the character of Sodom, we see something of that in the character of Lot.

You see, the Verse. The verse I have struggled with most, especially as a father of two gorgeous daughters, is verse eight. There's Lot. He says, don't abuse these angels who are staying with me. No, take my daughters, my young virgin daughters and have your way with them.

Do with them what you would like.

And you think, what? What are you doing, Lot? In what universe is that okay, Lot?

And yet, what we need to see with Lot's story is a challenge to us all. You see? What does Lot do? He moves to be near to the beautiful city of Sodom. A few chapters ago, we've seen as he's moved into Sodom.

And in this chapter, we see that Sodom has moved into Lot. See, as the men arrive, it's clear Lot loves this city with all its brokenness. He wants to hide it. Come. Come to my house.

Don't look at this. Come to my house. Off you go. In the morning, it's fine. Then later, as the city comes for these men, he wants to appease the city.

Such is his love for this place that he says, okay, take my daughters. Even after this, even once the people are blinded, he's told the city's going to be destroyed. And we're told he hesitates. Even as the angels grab his arm and take him out of the city and say, run for the hills. He goes, I don't really want to run for the hills.

Can I go to another city instead? Do you see what's happening? Lot's wife, famously, what does she do? She turns back, not because she's interested in the fire, but because she longs for the place. You see, the city has a place, a hold of their heart.

This is Lot, who knows the promises made to Abraham. And this becomes really challenging for us. Because the truth is, as Christians, we know how enticing this is, don't we?

As Christians, we have the promise of God. And yet it's so easy. It's so easy, isn't it, just to move close to sin. Psalm 1 talks about walking in step with the wicked. You know, it's that thing of knowing that the person in your office is slightly diddling the accounts to make the area look better.

And you think, I'm just going to overlook that. I'm just going to live with that.

And then having walked in step with the wicked, we stand in the way of sinners. We slow down. All of a sudden, actually, it comes to us doing the accounts. We think, I can just fudge that a little bit. It doesn't really matter, does it?

And from standing in the way of sinners, they sit in the way of mockers as we slow down. And the sin that we've got used to being around becomes just normal to us. It might not be in the area of finance, maybe it's in the area of family. I've put up with others manipulating behaviour. I've not called that out.

And now I'm just doing a little bit of it myself. Five years down the line, I'm doing things I would never have dreamed of doing.

Maybe like with Lot, it's to do with sex. We know God puts sex design it for marriage. And yet what do I do? I just suffer a little bit of fooling around from a partner outside.

It's not that bad, is it? It's just a little bit of pornography. It's not hurting anybody, is it?

And slowly, over time, what ends up happening is that that gets a hold of me. And five years down the line, I do what I'd never have dreamed of doing before. Honestly. Do you think Lot, when he stood there choosing where to live, ever thought, hey, do you know what? There'll come a day and it's okay, I'll just offer my children up to be.

Do you think he'd ever do that? No. No. But incrementally, slowly, it becomes where he's at. I need to pick up the pace.

But do you see the horror, Christian? Where is it that you're moving close to Sodom? Where is it that you're letting that become part of you?

And then there's the big problem, you see, because I read this passage and I really don't like Lot. I find him despicable. But then God goes and saves him. What is going on? It is outrageous, isn't it?

How would God save somebody who's just done that? Grabs him by the hand, takes him out.

Look with me at verse 29. So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and bore Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

The crazy thing is, why does God save Lot? He saves Lot because he's associated with Abraham. It's because of Abraham that Lot is saved.

We never got to the bottom, did we, of God's mercy? God, the one who hears the brokenness of the world. You kind of follow the logic and think, if only one. If there was one righteous person, what would you do? Go.

He'd say, well, I'll come and I'll see. I'll look at this world and find that there is no one righteous, not even One.

And so I will step in and I will be the righteous one. And for the sake of that righteous one who takes the blame, takes the punishment that all of us deserve for all of us flirt with Sodom for the sake of him, I will save those who otherwise would be hopeless. And you say Lot doesn't deserve it. And God says that's what mercy means.

This morning, as I was wrestling with this, I began to realise that this passage shows me that God is more just than I'm okay with. The idea of him raining fire down is something I'm not okay with, but it shows that he is more just. He cares more about the brokenness of the world than I do. And the fact that he saves Lot I am not okay with. And it shows me that God is more merciful than I am.

And if you're outraged this morning, and I, part of me hopes you are, then you're just beginning to see the outrageousness of God's justice and his mercy.

And so what? Well, if we're fooling around, if we're challenged, we're playing around with Sodom, we need to stop. We need to come back to God. If we're feeling the injustice of this world, we need to know that God, the judge of all the world, will do what is right.

And if we're desperately aware of our need for mercy, we need to see that it stretches to even Lot, and therefore it can stretch to you. Today, in a few minutes time, we're going to come to the table and we're going to take bread and wine and we're going to taste. We're going to taste what it looked like for Jesus to say, okay, I will be absolutely just the hell that I deserve, that Ben Tanner deserves is paid for on the cross.

And the only way that I can save people like Lot, people like Ben Tanner, people like you, I have paid for at the cross. So come and receive the cross, says the judge of all the world has done what is right. Let me pray.

Heavenly Father, we live in a world that we lament over and we cry over and we weep. And we hate the fact that the stats are as they are. And we hate the fact that the stats don't even pick up on a lot of the pain.

We know that there are people in this world who long for the day fire will rain down and injustice will be no more.

We thank you so much that Jesus spoke about hell because he doesn't want us to go there, but because he endured it on our behalf.

Help us, Father, to deal with sin seriously, not to play with it.

And help us to sing these words with confidence. Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free for God the just is satisfied to look on him instead of me.

Amen. Let's stand and sacrifice.