Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah (Part 1)

Genesis 19
Pastor Conrad Mbewe
SBFYC Session 2 - Tuesday PM

During our evening sessions, I want us to learn a few lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah. These are lessons about sin. Specifically, the nature of sin. We can learn much about sin in looking at the effects of sin on a prior culture and generation. In Genesis 19, we see sin as it manifests itself in human life. God at this point had already determined that these cities would go up in flames.

Here are the three lessons:
1) Sin manifests itself in uncontrolled passion
2) Sin manifests itself in stubborn or blind unbelief
3) Sin manifests itself in worldly attachments

Tonight, we look at the first of these three lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah.

Many young people growing up, especially in Christian homes, tend to think of the moral standards of their upbringing but often take these things for granted. As they grow older, they try to push the boundaries. Then in their twenties they leave home and they often turn out the exact opposite of what their parents had raised them to be. This is an effect of the nature of sin in the human heart. This lies in some like a dormant snake. We can either stuff it or feed it. In the end, it rises up and destroys us.

In Genesis 19:4 we read that before they had gone to bed that all the men had surrounded the house of Lot and demand that he deliver over the men of the house to have sexual relations with them. How did these men find themselves at Lot's door?

1. Wrong passions often arise and grow by listening to the wrong crowd.
How did these men become homosexuals? Because they were born with the wrong genes? No! Because they listened to the wrong crowd. Genesis 19:1 gives the following scenario. The sun is going down, the meals are made ready, the animals are penned, business is being wrapped up, visitors on a journey stop in for the evening, angels included, and Lot says, "Come to my home." Within a few hours the men arrived at his door. How did that happen? Within hours the word was out. The word was spread through the drinking places, the places where men hung out. Lot's house is the place to be tonight! Before you know it, everyone is heading out in that direction. Young or old, because they had come into the presence of this kind of talk, they were exposed to this type of language and they travel to Lot's house.

The lesson is this: you are what you hear; you are what you see. That is what you will become. The movies you watch, the people you hang around with, things that used to make your heart skip a beat, now you are like them.

Who do you hang around? How do you spend your free time? What kind of company do you keep at that time? Who are you listening to? What are your favorite voices that you spend time listening to? What kind of music do you listen to? What is the subject of its lyrics? On your Ipod's and mp3 players, what do they tell you about the value of life?

We should not be surprised that entire cities and nations take on an entire set of values that make their forefather shake in their graves. What is in your ears? How do you spend those precious hours when you are tired and the music is getting louder and louder and no one is present to tell you, "That is enough!"

2. Wrong passions cause other people to compromise because of their demands.
The problem with wrong passions is that they are seldom between me, myself, and I. They involve others. That is what we have before us. When these men arrived at Lot's house with their demands, Lot goes outside and pleads with them not to do this, this is wrong. Then he compromised. Here are my two daughters! He obviously knew that what he said was wrong. They were already engaged to be married! But it was the pressure of the men, and Lot compromised. It would not be as bad as if he met their original demand. So he compromised.

Here is a simple test: Are those around you being pulled upwards or downwards by your demands? When others that are familiar with you are with you, do they end up a better people because of your passions or do you lead them into compromise? Only you can answer that question correctly. How many have compromised because every one of their friends are sleeping around? Rather than confront their sinful nature, it becomes pressure upon pressure upon pressure. "Do you really love me? Then..."

Do you see what the power of passion does? Behind closed doors many lives are destroyed, not because they determined to go that way but because others could not control your own passions. Jesus said it would be better to have a millstone to be tied around their neck and for them to be thrown into the ocean than to lead another to compromise.

3. Wrong passions when they are not sure will not listen to any counsel and compromise until they are destroyed.

These have fed and fed their passions until they are consumed by it and destroyed. How do we see this in our story? After Lot had finished pleading with them, they became rough with him, "Get out of our way!" They did not want to listen to him. They now claim that he came their as a visitor and now they question how he could judge them. They ignored his counsel.

It is the same today. We find any excuse not to listen to wise counsel. Look at these men. "Lot came as an alien and now he wants to sit in judgment of us. Who does he think he is?" Does that sound familiar? And they say that they would treat Lot worse than the other men. They assured him that he would not and could not stand in his way.

When wrong passion crawls in its power in your life it will cause you to damn even your mother and father, "You won't stand in my way!" We become willing to injure innocent individuals in an effort to feed our wrong passion. These type of people often grow up in our churches with the snake dormant in their chests. But they feed it and feed it to their own destruction. When we read and see reports of people acting in heinous ways, we need to point and say, "Accept for the grace of God, there goes I."

Therefore I ask, where in this story do you find yourself tonight? You might say, "I grew up in a Christian home." That is not enough! Your heart needs to be cured!

Are you hanging out with the wrong crowd? Listening to the wrong crowd? Influenced by people whose lives are less than to be desired? It is only a matter of time!

Have you become the source of compromise in others so that you may gratify your sinful nature?

Have you reached the point where you will even threaten others just to have your own way?

I want to encourage you tonight - pause and listen. wake up before it is too late. Are your passions pulling you down to the destruction of hell? Stop giving excuses and trying to argue out your case. Cry out to God for your heart to be cured by the Lord. Bring your heart to the Lord. If you notice you are listening to the wrong things or know that you have wrongly influenced others because of wrong passions then now is the time to come to the physician of souls! Jesus has done it for others and He will do it for you as well. Come so that you might have life and have it more abundantly.