Well, hello everybody and welcome back. This is our Daily Devotional for Tuesday, November 12th, 2024. And what a wonder it is to have the internet, the wah, wah, wah, World Wide Web. What a marvelous thing it is to have this sort of technology. What an honor it is to be here with you. I will say on the Lord's Day on Sunday, I was speaking with a couple, and I'm not going to identify them because I didn't get their permission to do so, but they have been here all along, and I cannot tell you what encouragement I received from them both. I didn't know that they were here every day for the devotionals, and you too. know who you are. I spoke to you after church. But to be encouraged so much by them both, and it was the husband that talked about how he actually feels as though he's there witnessing these things, watching these things unfold, and what a blessing that is. I said I try to put pictures, or excuse me, words into pictures as we go through this thing. And, you know, not act it out or anything, as you know, but really, these are true stories, y'all, and if it's possible to make the scriptures come alive, as it were, in terms of understanding the narrative, in terms of actually getting it, then that's really one of my goals. One of the things that I found is that sometimes people can slip into this, read the Bible just for the sake of reading the Bible kind of deal, check it off the list. But if you do that, if you don't take the time to stop and really consider what's happening in the moment, then you can really miss the story of what's going on here. And it is the story that's important, the narrative, because it paints the picture that God wants us to see, okay? And so that couple, thank you both so much for your encouragement. And I know that many others of you have been here all the way through, I don't know what we're on, 650 maybe, 650 devotionals, you've been here with me. I'm so grateful for you. If you're brand new, we don't do anything complicated here. Chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And yesterday, it just so happens that we finished Genesis chapter 18, where we receive a prompting, really, from Abraham. where instead of writing people off, instead of just being done with people, instead of seeking death and destruction, Abraham intercedes, not only for his nephew Lot, but for other righteous people that would have been in the city of Sodom, and little did he know, Gomorrah as well. And again, what we get is a prompting there, a calling to pray. Y'all, in this world right now, it's never been easier to write people off. It has never been more simple to be alienated from folks, to determine, I'm done with them. Estrangement in many ways is at an all-time high since the war between the states. It's just out there. especially with children and their parents, and usually it's over politics, so it's really easy to write people off. But we don't have that right. Instead, what we are called to do is to pray for those that are struggling, and that's what we see with Abraham. Well, technically speaking, it's not prayer in the conventional sense, because as we read yesterday, Abraham stood before the Lord. I mean, the Lord was there in physical presence in front of Abraham. We don't really have that thing going on, but instead, in some ways, we have so much better because we're indwelled by the Holy Spirit, right? and God calls us to come to Him, to approach His throne of grace with boldness in the book of Hebrews. Not because we have the right to be bold based on ourselves, much to the contrary, we can be bold. We can enter the throne room of grace because we have been given admittance by and through the blood of Jesus Christ. So. Let's receive that prompting, but in terms of the story, at the end of chapter 18, God is there with Abraham and he's telling Abraham that he's about to go down to Sodom and he's going to find out if what he's heard is true. Now, Abraham knows what he has heard is true. Okay. And so where we're picking up today is after the Lord has agreed and yes, Abraham kind of whittles him down. all the way from 50 righteous people in Sodom, so God won't destroy, all the way down to 10, and God shows again and again that He is gracious, that He's merciful. Now, we transition here, and we transition to chapter 19, and I gotta be honest with y'all. A second ago I was talking about making the text come alive and how that's part of my goal. It's kind of weird with this one, okay? As I was considering the book of Genesis and what I should cover and this and that and the other, chapter 19 was one of those that came to mind and it was like one of those moments where you go, I don't know about this because chapter 19, really y'all, it's one of the worst chapters in The whole of the scriptures. Okay. And when I say it's one of the worst, I mean, it's just nasty. It's just vile. It is morally bankrupt. And, and, and, you know, 10 years ago, maybe even five years ago, It would have been much worse, but now in the advent of Pride Month and the gay pride parades that are happening everywhere and somewhere along the line somebody thought it was a good idea for people with mental illness to go into public schools and to go into libraries and read stories to children. And yes, that's right, transvestites, up until fairly recently, that was diagnosed as a real mental illness. Y'all, there's a reason that Clinger dressed like a woman in mash. He was trying to get his Section 8 and get tossed out of the Army so he could get out of Korea, okay? It's a recognized mental illness. before the LGBTQ+, whatever it is, agenda became so advanced like it is now, where you see children, I mean, look at what happened at the Olympics. Children dancing almost nude with homosexualities on national TV, and it's lauded, and that's not even getting into the depiction they did of the Last Supper, and then they're like, oh, no, no, no, it wasn't the Last Supper, it was Bacchus. Well, how was that any better? Dionysius, if you want to use that term to make yourself feel even better than that, because Bacchus, that's where we get the word debauchery from. Y'all, it's so advanced. Our society has become so putrid and disgusting with this stuff that five years ago, I would have been much less comfortable, and comfortable is not even the word, but I would have been much less hesitant about Genesis chapter 19 than I am now. But y'all know what's going on in the world. And if you don't, then wake up, right? I heard it was said really well when somebody said of the drag queen. That's the terminology we use for homosexual transvestites now. But the drag queen story hour, they said this. They said, the question isn't whether children should go hear stories read by drag queens. The question is, why are homosexual transvestite men desiring and demanding an audience of children? I mean, seriously, that's the world that we're living in. But the reason I mention all this stuff is in a preface to Genesis 19, because we're dealing with some stuff that is just as, if not more shocking than what we can see on, I don't know, any given television channel these days. but it does show you something, and it does give us a poignant warning. Now, I'm gonna say more on these things as we go along. We got some stuff to deal with, y'all, so let's pray, and then we're gonna dig in, and this is gonna take us a couple of days at least to get through all of this, but let's pray first. Our Father, we thank you for this time that you have given to us, and as we come to this chapter in your Word, a chapter that is difficult, oh, it's difficult because it's so nasty and vile. We know that it's not in there for shock value. We know instead, that your word contains what it does, because all of it is useful for teaching, rebuking, training in righteousness. It's all breathed out by you and inerrant. And Father, it's useful, and it's useful for so many reasons, to point us to the reality of the world around us, to let us see what the world is like. It's useful as a warning. And let us heed this warning, and not only us here in Daily Devotionals, but as a society, let us heed this warning, Father, looking out, paying attention, please guide us in this time. Watch over us as we come to your word, that we would come to it honestly, ready to hear, ready to listen, not with our agenda, but instead with our only agenda being knowing, understanding, hearing, being transformed by your word. We can't do this on our own, so please, by your Holy Spirit, guide us. We pray it in Christ's name, amen. All right, so y'all, Genesis 19, God, in the form of these three men, has left Abraham, okay? We left Abraham there. The last verse of chapter 18, it says, when the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home. Chapter 19, verse one, the two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. All right, time out. Who are the two angels? It's confusing on its own, y'all. Let's just be blunt about it. It's confusing. Chapter 18, verse 1, Jehovah, the LORD, in all caps, appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. So in chapter 18, You got these three men, and Abraham thinks they're three men. By the time he gets to the end of chapter 18, after preparing this meal and dealing with them, Abraham knows that these are not just men, okay? For instance, we know this because of what happens in verse 22. He thinks they're three men. Somewhere along the way, he realizes they're God, okay? Verse 22 of 18, 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 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 not the judge of all the earth do what is right?" Right there, Abraham knows this is God that he's dealing with, okay? And then he'll go on to say more about that, recognizing that he is indeed God. He even calls himself dust and ashes, comparing himself to God. Y'all, we go from Abraham seeing three men to Abraham recognizing this is God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and now we got two angels. What happened to the three men that is in fact God? Who are these two angels? I don't know. We don't know, okay? This is just the story how it progresses, okay? The most likely explanation is that these are two angels, right? Perhaps it's the angel of the Lord, perhaps it's an angel God has sent for destruction, maybe, I don't know. But y'all, we know that these angels are messengers, and they are there on a mission from the Lord, and it's a serious one. So again, Genesis 19 verse one. Now y'all, before I said, okay, what? what gives. There's a reason why I've said that one of these at least is the angel of the Lord. Maybe it's the angel of the Lord in the form of two angels. I do not know. But Lot is bowing down low with his face to the ground. This is not like the book of Revelation when John bows down to the angel to worship him and the angel stopped him. That's why I'm saying perhaps this is the angel of the Lord. We're going to understand more, but we're going with the story. Okay, we're reasoning out the story as we go. Verse two, 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 in the morning. No, they answered, we will spend the night in the square. All right, now again, timeout. What's going on here? Y'all, what this is really talking about is ancient Eastern culture where men that were traveling through, they would go to the city square, they would start there, okay, then they would find an inn, they would find some place to stay. That's just how life works. A modern day equivalent would be like, you're at a gas station, okay, we're off of 81 here in Virginia, so lots and lots of traffic coming through. But you're at a gas station and you see somebody, you strike up a conversation and you say, hey, listen, why don't you come stay at my house? And they're like, nah, nah, nah, we're just going to go up the way here and we'll find something. That's kind of what this is, OK? It's not them necessarily saying they're just going to spend all night sleeping in the square. They're looking for hospitality, that sort of thing. It's not that they're homeless, it's not that they're vagrants. Very clearly, they don't look like vagrants, okay? Very clearly, there's something about these two angels. Were it not so, then Lot wouldn't have recognized this and bowed down low with his face to the ground. We don't know what they look like. but they had to look different. Or maybe they didn't look different at all, and maybe Lot, because he was a righteous man, recognized them to be different. We just don't know. I said this recently when I was preaching or doing a devotional somewhere, and I talked about how sometimes I wish that the Bible that we have was a picture Bible, because I'd like to see what the great trees of Mamre look like. I'd like to see what Nimrod, the mighty hunter, looked like. I'd like to see what these two angels look like. But I'm glad that our Bible is not a picture Bible, because if it were, then we would be worshiping it. God knows what he's talking about with that whole second commandment thing, graven images. He knows who we are. So I'm glad it's not, but I do wonder what they look like. Nevertheless, verse three, it says, but he insisted, this is Lot after they said, no, no, no, no, we'll just go to the square, we'll figure something out. No, verse three, but he, Lot, 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. Now, there's a couple of things I'm gonna bring to your attention here. And I'm bringing them to your attention just because I think they're fascinating. Maybe this much hay shouldn't be made over these things, but I'm gonna bring it out anyway because I think it's interesting. You have a study of two men going on here. You have Abraham in chapter 18, you have Lot in chapter 19. According to 2 Peter, Lot is a righteous man too. But there is a big difference between Abraham and Lot. You wanna know what it is? their wives. Okay, y'all. When it says here that he baked bread for them, realize, and this is not, please don't accuse me. Listen, if you don't know, I love to cook, okay? So the idea of that's woman's work kind of thing. I'm not that guy. I love to cook. I've never really baked bread before. That's just not a world that I have entered into, but I love cooking things, okay? I can't wait for Thanksgiving because I'm planning out my menu, all that kind of stuff, and I'm gonna cook A lot of it, okay? And I love that part. And Amanda can cook, too. That is not the issue. But, y'all, really and truly here, you're talking about an area of the world where it's still better to die than to be dishonored, where in this area of the world, I mean, look at how women are treated, okay? The idea, interestingly enough, as stuff is going on politically and women are dressing like ketchup bottles, you know, with the red robe and the white hat, I think that's from The Handmaid's Tale. I don't know why ultra-liberal women in the United States that view everything as a sign of oppression need to go to a fictional character to highlight women's oppression when they can just dress like Muslim women around the world. that are oppressed to the highest extent, that you can see about a slit of their eyeballs because their husbands oppress them so much. That's the area of the world that we're dealing with around 3,000 years ago. Well, more than that, 3,500 years ago. The dew didn't bake the bread, okay? When visitors came, it wasn't on the husband to prepare the meal. But what do we find here? Well, when the men came to Abraham, he went and got Sarah and he said, listen, I want you to take all of this and don't give them the old bread, fresh bread. And then Sarah goes about her business to aid her husband. Who's baking the bread here? Lot is. And it's also fascinating too. Notice it's not just bread that he's baking here. Again, let's read it, okay? He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast. Y'all, the next time that we're gonna hear about bread being baked without yeast is gonna be in the book of Exodus at the Passover. And the reason that they baked bread without yeast was because they knew they were getting out of town, y'all. And it's symbolic of the fact that they didn't have time to let the bread rise because the Lord was about to deliver them and judgment was about to befall Egypt. What's going on in Genesis 19, but something very similar. He doesn't even give time for the bread to rise. Does he know this? I don't know. I just think it's fascinating that the next time we hear about this is right before the Israelites' flight from Egypt. And here, we find this right before Lot's flight from Sodom. And if you don't know the story, I'm sorry for spoiling it for you. But nevertheless, that's what we find right here. Now, continuing on, verse four, it says, 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 see you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may know them. All right, time out. What I did was read to you from the Hebrew just now, because that's the terminology that's used there so that we may know them. All sorts of hay is made out of this by people with liberal theology. They say things like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, the people of Sodom, they just wanted to bring them out. They just wanted to get to know them better, get acquainted with them, all that kind of stuff. The 1984 NIV translation reads this way. It says, they called out to law. Yeah, sorry, I lost my place. Verse five, they called out to Lot, where are the men who came to see you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them. And there it is. I'm glad that I'm looking at a computer screen instead of standing behind the pulpit right now because this would be even more awkward than it is. You know, the reason why the NIV is translated this way and why any decent translation is translated this way is because while, yes, indeed, the Hebrew does say so that we may know them, Y'all, it's the same version, it's the same usage of the term no, in that Adam knew his wife Eve, okay? This is not just acquaintance. There's a reason why these broad sweeping terms are used here, that all the men from every part of the city, young and old alike, are calling, bring them out. And y'all, the reason that we know it's this is because of what we find back in chapter 13 when everything is described. Genesis 13, 13, when it says that Lot went to live near Sodom, it says, now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord. Fast forward to when Abram deals with Sodom, or the king of Sodom, he knows what's going on. What did we just read in chapter 18? That the outcry had risen before the Lord, that he knew terrible, nasty, disgusting things were going on here. That's what this is. And we're actually going to end on this point, because what we see tomorrow is going to be something that's really, really tricky that we've got to deal with. And I don't want to crack open that can of worms right now. We're 21 minutes and 50 seconds in right now. But nevertheless, see this for what it is. that Sodom is wicked. Sodom is nasty. There's not even an attempt any longer to hide what they are. They have completely and fully embraced wickedness and it's on display. So much so that they're ready to tear down Lot's house just to get to these men that had come into the city. Now, what does this have to do with you and me today? I started out by talking about how even five years ago, this would have been much worse than it is today. And the reason it's a little bit better is because of how depraved our society is. I don't wanna gross you out, I don't wanna make you uncomfortable, anything like that, but y'all, if you don't see the world around you for what it is, if you don't see that which is glorified and celebrated and twisted, when in reality, it's an abomination, And don't give me any of this, oh, no, no, no, all sin is equal in God's eyes. Here's the thing with that, okay? Let me just go ahead and clear this up. Yes, any sin is enough to separate you from God forever. But to say that, oh, no, no, all sins are equal. A sin is a sin is a sin. Where does it say that in the Bible? In fact, quite the opposite. We get all kinds of lists in the Bible of things that God finds particularly offensive, particularly heinous. He uses things like wicked. He uses things like abomination. It's just things like what we read the last chapter, that the outcry of Sodom had reached him. What do you think the outcry is? The intense wickedness of it. And y'all, how this applies to us today is, if you look at the world around you, we got a lot of wickedness going on. Praise God, though, that we have Genesis 18, where we see that God said, if there's only 10 righteous people, I'm not going to wipe them all out. And y'all, for the world that hates Christians as much as it does, the world ought to be really glad that we're in it. Because let me tell you something, if all the Christians are out of the world all of a sudden, if there are none righteous left, then God would owe Sodom an apology for not wiping out the earth. But the reality is, is that we're here. Okay? God's still preserving his people. God is still growing his church. There is still a stand against wickedness, no matter how much of the world glorifies it and pretends that it's okay. Again, we're living in this time where people view it as evil to give hormones to cattle, but they think it's perfectly fine to give them to a five-year-old boy because he wants to wear dresses. And you can't convince me that that hypothetical little boy isn't being influenced by his parents tremendously. Y'all, that's the time that we're living in. In a lot of ways, we're living in Sodom. So what do we do? Genesis 18, pray. Let's do that right now. Our Father, we thank you that you are active in the world around us, that you see, you know what's going on. Please intervene. Spare us from our own wickedness. Let the winds of revival blow in your church and let the winds of the gospel blast through the nations so that people would come to know you. We thank you for Genesis chapter 19, for this warning that is given. Let us see it for what it is. And we pray it all in Christ's name, amen. Well, I'd like to thank you all for being a part of this time. Lord willing, we'll be back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. and we're gonna pick up where we left off and we're gonna see some crazy stuff, y'all. Even so, let's keep it all in perspective. Let's take the Bible for what it is, that it's true. Take care.