Consequences of Spiritual Compromise (Part 2)

[0:00] I'm not in heaven yet either. Why is it that it's hard for us to live with Jesus as our treasure! and keep that treasure of who He is! constantly at the forefront of our minds so that every thought, every decision, every word, every priority! of our life is lived out for His honor and His glory.

[0:18] Why is that? So it begins with an S, it has an I in the middle, and it ends with an N. Right? That's why. And so, we are saved to the othermost by Jesus Christ from our sins, and we are kept saved from those sins as we live week to week, day to day with Him in relationship to the world around us.

[0:38] So in other words, what I'm saying and encouraging us is this. We needed Jesus to save us, and we need Jesus to keep saving us. And that's how we should live. Now, what I'm going to do with you today is part two of the message that I began last Sunday in chapter 19 of Genesis.

[0:59] Chapter 19, and I've titled this Consequences of Spiritual Compromise. This will be a part two. So I'm going to begin reading in verse 1 and work down through the context of what we covered last time, and then I'll end here in verse 26.

[1:16] That leaves us from 27 to 38 to cover next time, and that will finish out the chapter, Lord willing. Now, the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom.

[1:30] When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and he bowed down with his face to the ground. And he said, Now behold, my lords, please turn aside into your servant's house and spend the night, wash your feet, then you may rise early and go on your way.

[1:45] They said, however, no, but we shall spend the night in the square. Yet he urged them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house, that is Lot's house, and Lot prepared a feast for them and baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

[2:01] But before they could lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter. So now we've got all these men, old, young, rich, poor, cultured, whatever.

[2:17] Verse 5, And they called to Lot and said to him, Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may have relations with them.

[2:29] I mean, they're not even trying to hide this, are they? But Lot went out to them at the doorway, quickly shut the door behind him, and said, Please, please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. Now behold, I have two daughters.

[2:42] They've not yet had relations with man. Please let me bring them out to you, and you can do whatever you like to them. Only do not, or do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof.

[2:56] But they said, Stand aside. Furthermore, they said, This one came in as an alien, and already he's acting like a judge. Now we will treat you worse than them.

[3:07] So they pressed hard against Lot, and came near to break down the door. But the men reached out their hands, that is the angels, and brought Lot into the house with them, and shut the door.

[3:20] Then the angels struck the men who were at the doorway of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves trying to find the doorway.

[3:31] Then the two men said to Lot, Whom else have you here? Now again, folks, they're not asking this question because they don't know. They're asking this question to get Lot to rehearse in his own mind and his own heart, what is at stake here?

[3:45] Who else here do you have that are dear to you that are going to be taken away by what we're about to tell you? He says, A son-in-law and your sons and your daughters and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of this place.

[3:59] Why? For we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord has sent us to destroy it. Now Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters and said, Up, up, get out of this place for the Lord will destroy the city.

[4:18] But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting. When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, Up, take your wife and your two daughters who are here or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.

[4:31] But Lot hesitated. So the men seized his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, for the compassion of the Lord was upon him and they brought him out and put him outside the city.

[4:47] When they had brought them outside, one said, Escape for your life. Do not look behind you and do not stay anywhere in the valley. Escape to the mountains or the high place or you will be swept away.

[5:00] But Lot said to them, Oh, no, no, my lords. Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight and you have magnified your loving kindness which you have shown me by saving my life.

[5:10] But I cannot escape to the mountains for the disaster will overtake me there and I will die. Now behold, this town is near enough to flee and it is small. Please let me escape there.

[5:21] Is it not small that my life may be saved? And so he said to him, Behold, I grant you this request also not to overthrow the town of which you have spoken.

[5:31] Hurry, hurry, escape there for I cannot do anything until you arrive there. Therefore, the name of the town was called Zoar which means small. The sun had risen over the earth when Lot came to Zoar.

[5:45] Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven and he overthrew those cities and all the valley and all the inhabitants of the cities and what grew on the ground.

[5:58] But his wife from behind him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. What a story. What a true account of the goodness of God in the midst of the wrath of God.

[6:15] We have asked the question, Will God sweep away the righteous with the wicked? And this passage just screams the answer. No, He will not. God is going to judge our nation.

[6:27] You understand that. The unbelief and wickedness that is continuing to spread across our country and into the very fiber of who we are as a nation, God is going to judge that.

[6:40] He will not overlook or wink at that. But, in all of that, friends, God will not sweep away His people with the punishment and judgment that He visits on any society.

[6:51] He will not do that. God will preserve and safeguard each of us and His people. And we see this in this story. Now, I want to set the tone a little more for this so I've got a little bit of an extended introduction today with all this.

[7:09] There are some things that I want you to have in your heart doctrinally as we come to this to better help you understand what is going on here with Lot as he is kind of pulled out in the scene of the story and highlighted.

[7:24] What are we supposed to see in his life? Now, the Bible depicts sin. The sin that we see here as an active force of evil at work in human nature.

[7:40] Is evil at work in the world? Yes. But where does evil come from in terms of the evil that human beings do? From within. Sin. So we cannot say the devil made me do it.

[7:52] We sin because we are sinners. We are sinners at heart. We sin because we are sinners at heart. We are born with a nature dominated by sin at work in our thoughts, our desires, our attitudes, and our actions.

[8:13] So says the Scriptures. Now, listen, theologians refer to this sin nature, the blackness of our heart from which we sin.

[8:24] They refer to this sin nature as original sin. That's the theological way that they talk about it. Original sin is the moral corruption we inherit from Adam's disobedience.

[8:38] So we all have this problem. Original sin explains the origin, original, origin of our sin nature. Does it refer to the first sin that was ever committed?

[8:50] Yes, but it doesn't stop there. Original sin has to do not only with the first sin that was committed by Adam and Eve, it also deals with the fact that we can trace the origin of our sin nature back to our original parents.

[9:05] When they sinned, the nature of human beings was altered forever. This is why we needed Jesus to come and give us a new nature, his nature in place of the old man.

[9:18] Now we get the new man, the new nature from which we relate to Almighty God and are made holy by his grace. Friends, from the time Adam and Eve sinned against God in Genesis 3, now just track this with me, to within one generation of them having their first children, Cain and Abel, mankind devolved into murder.

[9:43] Not evolved, devolved into murder. The first kids out of the gate, one murdered the other one. Merely one generation after that, with Cain's son, Lamech, humanity plunged itself into prideful sexual sin that we call and understand as polygamy.

[10:05] Lamech took for himself two wives, Ada and Zillah, against the will and prescription of Almighty God. Ten more generations later, Seth's line brings us to Noah.

[10:21] Noah. By this time, about 1600 years after creation, so about 1600 years have gone by, Cain and Seth's respective lines have produced thousands upon tens of thousands of people as they live hundreds of years and are blessed by God with an incredible fertility.

[10:46] Sin and Satan have had time also to root and fruit as well. The spiritual corruption and the compromise with sin that have grown intolerably bad in God's sight is now going to be addressed.

[11:02] Well, we ask the question, how bad? How bad did it get in just that 1600 year period of time? How bad did it get? If you turn back from Genesis 19 to Genesis 6, I'm laying the groundwork here for you to think about what's going on in Sodom and Gomorrah with Lot.

[11:22] Genesis 6, 5 through 7, it tells us how bad it got. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was what?

[11:38] Only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

[11:48] Did you know that God could be grieved in his heart? The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky for I am sorry that I have made them.

[12:06] If you go back up into verse 5 and note this once more, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great. What did the angels and the Lord tell Abraham right before they left him to go down to Sodom?

[12:20] We're going to go down there to see for ourselves. It's not because they didn't know. It's because they're doing their diligence to show Abraham and us and Israel as they read this that God is not capricious or fickle about what he does.

[12:36] He has a full personal first hand knowledge for everything that he does. And so none of this escaped the Lord. He knew. God has been acting like this towards sin and mankind from the very beginning.

[12:51] Why do you think that he put Adam and Eve out of the garden? That was consequence for compromise. They compromised and sinned against the Lord and that was part of the consequence.

[13:07] No longer would they live in a paradise. No longer would they have that paradise living in them, in their hearts, bringing them close to God. Now something else was going to have to happen.

[13:19] Now interestingly also, and you don't have to turn there, I'm going to put it up here on the screen, the book of Jude gives further insight into what God thought about how bad it really was.

[13:31] How bad was it that God had to send the flood of judgment on these people? How bad is it in Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the valley that God would have to kill every single human being, perhaps thousands of people, and destroy all the vegetation all around.

[13:52] Have any of you ever traveled to the Dead Sea, the Salt Sea, and okay, you've been there, you got to see it? Was there much in the way of anything living in that immediate area?

[14:04] No, no. I've seen the pictures in a couple of videos, and God said, I'm going to kill all of the people in judgment, and I'm going to wipe out everything that grows on the ground.

[14:15] And as far as I know, it's still like that in that area, because they think that Sodom and Gomorrah are probably somewhere on that south part of the Dead Sea. That's the people that I read are thinking that.

[14:28] Now, in Jude 6 and 7, we get further insight about what God thought about how bad it was in terms of this sin in Sodom and Gomorrah. Look at this. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept, God has kept, in eternal bonds, under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

[14:52] Now, notice this, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them. So, we're being given a similar thing, a comparison here. Since they, in the same way as these, indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

[15:20] Jude helps us see that these sinning angels or demons that are being mentioned in this verse didn't remain in the abode that God designated for them.

[15:31] In prideful rebellion by Satan's command, they roamed beyond their domain and their sin was equated with that of Sodom and Gomorrah. That's the point. Now, when we went through this passage of Scripture way back in Genesis 6, I covered all this in that sermon.

[15:48] If you want to go back and listen to any of that in the way of how we understand and explain it. The point here is that the sin is being equated, these demons, their sin, of leaving their domain and doing what they did is being equated with Sodom and Gomorrah.

[16:05] Sodom and Gomorrah up on the screen here indulged in the same way as these, the same way as these fallen angels, that is, in gross sexual immorality as the men of Sodom went after strange flesh.

[16:21] You'll remember that what they're talking about here with the demons, the way we interpret and understand that passage is that demons, fallen angels, possessed human men and those men had relations with human women.

[16:35] And that was the sin, that was the gross immorality, that was the going after strange flesh. God had a special punishment for them. He is comparing that sin of those demonic angels with the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah and the men that are committing that sin in Sodom and Gomorrah.

[16:57] This is how serious this is. And it needs to be impressed on us. That's why I'm doing this. Friends, God sees all. He witnessed this sexual abomination.

[17:08] God witnessed this. Now, last Sunday, I took you to God's clear mandates against sexual sin, including Sodom's sin of homosexual perversion.

[17:20] That seems to be the sin that is being lifted out, as it were, among many sins and kind of held as the example of the bottom of the barrel of depravity and why God now is going to judge them in the way that he does.

[17:36] I took you, if you would turn there with me, to Leviticus 18. Now, one of the reasons that I'm doing this with you, and I'm tracking back here, is you will, if you have not yet, encounter, you will encounter people who will tell you that the Bible does not speak against homosexuality.

[17:56] I watched a pastor give a video, what is it called, Suzanne? What did he do? What was he doing, the guy I watched this past week? A webinar.

[18:06] Thank you. I watched a webinar, and this pastor was teaching about the issue of homosexuality. He himself was brought out of homosexuality.

[18:18] He's got a fascinating testimony, and now he's a pastor, he's gone to seminary, that God is mightily using this man, and he spoke of a time when he went to a chaplain.

[18:30] He was actually in prison, and serving his time in prison, God worked in his heart and saved him, and he went to the chaplain to deal with this issue in his life, and the chaplain told him that the Bible did not condemn homosexuality.

[18:47] He said that. That's what the chaplain told him. Folks, this is out there, and it's more prevalent than you might think. How many of you, if I could see hands, how many of you have encountered anyone at any time in your life that told you homosexuality is not wrong, or the Bible doesn't deal with homosexuality?

[19:05] Man, so if you could be here to see this on the tape, most of the hands went up around. So this is why I'm doing this. Just to encourage you and reassure you and establish you that God has spoken to this issue and he's spoken very clearly.

[19:19] Leviticus 18, and I'm going to take you to verse 19. Now, we read this last time. Let me just remind you what God is going to say here that I'm going to highlight.

[19:31] He says in a list of sins that he does not want his people to be involved with because the people that they are going to be around in the pagan culture of the Canaanites have done all these things and are continuing to do them.

[19:51] They're having relations with animals. They're having relations man to man, woman to woman. They're all over the map. And so God says this in verse 19, you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity.

[20:06] You shall not have intercourse with your neighbor's wife to be defiled with her. You shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, the God of the Canaanites, nor shall you profane the name of your God.

[20:17] I am the Lord. Now notice, you shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination. Don't have intercourse with animals.

[20:32] Now, when you think of this, and God calls that defilement, perversion, defiled is used so many, abomination. I have taken my Bible and in that passage alone, I've highlighted every time he uses the word abomination, defiled, perversion, and you can see how they just light up.

[20:50] The entire passage is just filled with this. Now, does it strike you as it does me that God has to tell us not to do these things? Do you not think that the human soul would realize that these things are perverted and wrong and gross?

[21:09] Well, I've got news for you. We don't. Many of us don't see this as a problem and pursue it so that entire cultures were built around these sins.

[21:25] Notice what he says in verse 24. Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, for by all these, the nations which I'm casting out before you have become defiled.

[21:38] They've been guilty of all this. They've done all these. And they keep doing them. It's what seems to define their culture. Now, if you look at chapter 20 of Leviticus with me, and I'm going to take you first of all to verse 7, where God is continuing in these lists and continuing to tell them how they are to relate to him as a holy God, you shall consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy.

[22:08] Consecrate. Set yourself apart in the holiness that I have given to you as your God, for I am the Lord your God. This is how you're to relate to me. Verse 8 of chapter 20.

[22:19] You shall keep my statutes and practice them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. I am the Lord who sets you apart, makes you holy. In other words, God is saying, all these rules that I just gave you of things to stay away from and all these things that I've told you you need to practice, those are my statutes.

[22:38] Do those things. Keep those things. Because they're going to help you walk in holiness before me as a holy God. In other words, folks, listen, this is the foundation for their faithfulness because they serve a holy God.

[22:51] They are to be a holy people in the way that they live. Now you think that that's just not rocket science. All right, now go on to verse 13 of chapter 20. If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act.

[23:10] They shall surely be put to death. Their blood guiltiness is upon them. Look, God says it's detestable. We have an entire nation, if not a world, who spends billions of dollars advertising and celebrating the pride of the gay agenda.

[23:30] And they literally parade themselves multiple times a year around the world in what God says is detestable to him. Detestable.

[23:42] Now, look, this is clear verbiage. And we need to preach this like this. We need to preach that these people can be saved from their sin by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, but we cannot afford to win them to something that isn't true or that is less than what it took God to rescue them.

[24:04] If you want to know how bad the problem of homosexual sin is, think about what God had to do to rescue people from it. The answer will give you the answer to how bad the problem is.

[24:16] Look what lengths he had to go to to rescue us from our sin. Any sin. So here again, it is clear that God is speaking of homosexuality and all of its forms, the LBGTXYZ alphabet of all the things they've come up with that they're so proud of and want to be legislated so that everything seems normalized in our culture.

[24:41] If you look at verses 22 and 23 in chapter 20 of Leviticus, you are therefore to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances and do them so that the land to which I am bringing you to live will not spew you out.

[24:57] Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I will drive out before you for they did all these things and therefore I have abhorred them.

[25:09] You will hear people say we have homosexual priests. We have homosexual pastors. We marry homosexuals in quote unquote the church. And we want to normalize the fact that as long as they're monogamous, man with man and woman with woman, we're good to go.

[25:27] Who are we to judge? Well, I'll tell you who we are. We are the holy people of a holy God and we need to speak the holiness to people. As I look, look, Addie, as I look at you, as I think of the youth in this congregation, as I look at you guys and think about you, Derek, as you raise your family and bring them up, Hannah, you, if you haven't encountered it already, you're girls.

[25:52] It worries my heart almost sick at what I know they're going to face because my kids faced it 20 years ago. And it had a deep impact on my children.

[26:05] Deep impact. They left our house and encountered this. And I'm sad to say they succumbed to it in many ways. And that's all in the Lord. Folks, this is real.

[26:18] It is in our faces. And the answer that we need to give back is twofold. God says this is an abomination.

[26:29] It is detestable in his sight. And the only hope for its cure is the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, buried and raised again. Come to faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.

[26:42] That's the message. And we need to preach it with great clarity. Now, some say that these are outdated rules from the Old Testament, Jeff. You're just reading from the Old Testament. They no longer apply in our modern, modern time.

[26:55] But I say this. God hasn't changed. And his people relate to him in holiness. And that hasn't changed. None of the rules have changed.

[27:06] So now this question. Does the New Testament say that homosexuality in all its forms is wrong in God's sight? Does the New Testament say that?

[27:17] What does it say? Well, I took you to Romans last time. So we'll go there again. Romans chapter 1. And let me begin in verse...

[27:36] I want to read the whole thing and I just... I don't have time. Let's start at 21. Romans 1, 21. For even though the people that he's talking about now, people who had denied the power of God, for even though they knew God, that is, they saw God, they understood that God existed by what had been made, they did not what?

[28:01] They did not honor Him as God. They did not give thanks. In fact, not only did they not do that, they actually became, in that verse 21, futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened.

[28:17] So the speculations that they're now making about their own life apart from God, the way that they're beginning to understand how to order their lives without God, what does God say about that?

[28:30] They became futile. Futile means empty. Empty. Useless. And their foolish heart was darkened. Professing, though, to be wise, they became fools in God's sight.

[28:44] Why? Because they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, idols. Therefore, God gave, now notice, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.

[29:06] Now, they're going to spell out what that meant. God gave them over to what they wanted most in the lust of their heart. What did they do? Verse 25, they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

[29:23] And where did that idol worship take them? For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. For their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

[29:35] And in the same way, also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another. Do you see homosexuality there? Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.

[29:53] They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer. And God gave them over to a depraved mind, a moronic mind, a useless mind to do those things which are not proper.

[30:07] They were filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slanders, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful.

[30:23] My goodness, this is Sodom and Gomorrah. This is increasingly the banner of our own nation. And what our world wants to do is press us into acceptance.

[30:40] They want what they have in the way of their idled agenda to become normalized. You don't have to accept it.

[30:50] You just need to keep your mouth shut if you don't. But whatever you do, don't speak against it. Don't stand against it. Don't complain about it.

[31:02] Roll with it. And be quiet. And now I'm saying to us, church, am I being quiet? We are not going to be quiet. We are going to speak the truth in love about the reality of this.

[31:18] Folks, three times in this passage, the terrifying phrase, God gave them over. He gave them over to what they wanted most. He removed his restraining grace to the point that they gave themselves completely to Satan's deceptions.

[31:35] They had so turned their hearts to evil that they became, listen, inviting, welcoming hosts for demonic dominance over their lives. Now, I don't know if you have.

[31:46] I have. On many occasions across the decades of my ministry, I have witnessed directly to and involved myself in relationships with people who were homosexuals.

[32:00] When I say real, I'm talking about being their friend, trying to befriend them, trying to get to know them, trying to help them. And I'll tell you, if you've ever looked into the eyes of someone steeped in this sin and then listened to the words coming out of their mouth, it is a terrifying experience.

[32:18] It truly is. The depth of deception that you see in these people is heartbreaking, but it is also heart terrifying. Because you realize you are looking in the face of evil in those moments.

[32:31] People darkened by demonic dominance. It's the only way I can explain how they will come to the place that they do the things they do.

[32:43] Things that gross us out. They take great pride and pleasure in. How do you get to that place? Demonic dominance.

[32:55] I did not say possession. I'm not saying all homosexuals are demon-possessed. I'm saying they are demon-obsessed. This is a very...

[33:09] It's a very difficult reality. These people had so turned their hearts to evil that they became this inviting, welcoming host for this kind of demonic dominance in their life.

[33:23] Now, according to Jude, this is the reason God sees these people in comparison with the evil that Sodom and Gomorrah had become. Now, I think you're getting the picture here of what's going on.

[33:39] But before I leave, I want to take you to two more passages real quickly. 1 Corinthians 6. Now, I know that there are many... There are several good books out there that deal with this topic.

[33:51] How to understand homosexuality, the gay agenda, how to witness to people who are caught up in this sin. But I'm giving you some ammunition here as your pastor about how you can think about this.

[34:06] And I pray that maybe this message might be used in the future to minister those who are struggling in this sin and how to think about it as Genesis 19 reveals it to us.

[34:17] 1 Corinthians 6, verse 9. Or do you not know that the unrighteous... So that's who we're talking about now. We're characterizing unrighteous, that is, unbelieving people.

[34:29] They will not inherit the kingdom of God. So don't be deceived about them. You're going to have unrighteous people who are going to live as these things that are about to be listed and they're going to tell you they're Christians and they're not.

[34:41] Don't be deceived. Neither fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, or revilers, or swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

[34:56] Now such were some of you. Here's the hope. But you were washed. You were sanctified. That is, made holy, set apart. But you were justified, declared righteous in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

[35:10] There's the hope. That's the gospel. The hope for these people is the same hope that we have from deliverance from our sin. We may not have committed homosexual sin.

[35:21] Maybe sexual sin hasn't been an issue for you in your life. But there are other sins in your life. And it only takes one sin to send you to a devil's hell, doesn't it? 1 Timothy 1, verse 10.

[35:35] This is the final one I'll give you. 1 Timothy 1, verse 10. Again, I'm giving you places where Paul is giving these lists just like the Old Testament.

[35:46] Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. And in this particular list, look what he says. I'll start in verse 9. Realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, that is, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers.

[36:09] So there's the first one. We've got people killing their moms and dads for murderers. We have this for immoral men and homosexuals, kidnappers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching that is according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

[36:32] Folks, there are plenty of places in the Scriptures that speak directly to the issue of what's going on in Sodom and Gomorrah and why God is judging it. So I'm going to put this up on the screen for you to see it here.

[36:45] There's the verses that I've mentioned. And then this. When godless perversion is pridefully pursued, pandered, and paraded before God, it reveals the rottenness of original sin within.

[37:01] Society can expect God's judgment in the form of giving them over to that delusion as those who will undergo the punishment of eternal fire. And so our mission field waits to hear from us what is the hope to be delivered from this sin and deception.

[37:19] And we need to tell them, don't we? We need to tell them. The sin so predominantly widespread in Sodom and Gomorrah is homosexuality.

[37:31] There are many other sexual sins that are going on, but this perversion is being highlighted as the dominant one. It came to completely define the culture and way of life.

[37:43] Folks, I'm not making that up. That's not my opinion. The Bible said that men from every quarter of the city, rich, poor, young, old. In fact, the Bible uses hyperbole and says, look, all the people, that is, all the men of Sodom showed up at Lot's door and said, bring out the fresh ones.

[38:06] This is what's going on. That we may have intercourse with them. The sexual sin of Sodom has taken its hold on the hearts of thousands of people in this valley of cities.

[38:26] I told you last time, this sin is pervasive in these people, in their society. It is perverted, it is pernicious, and it is persistent, and there is no longer any hope for self-correction.

[38:38] Now, when I say self-correction, I am not talking about them saving themselves. I am talking about just basic morality. You realize we have a whole world full of unbelievers, but not everybody commits this sin.

[38:52] There are plenty of people out there who don't know Jesus, and they are just as disgusted by this sin as you are. And then there are some that are ambivalent and on the fence.

[39:03] They are like, to each his own, bro. Well, that is not what God says, and this is what I am saying to us. God is not ambivalent. He is not on the fence about this.

[39:14] These people are going to burn in the devil's hell. Just like swindlers and murderers and gossips who don't repent. God is not going to overlook this.

[39:29] It will go from bad to worse. Now, here is the thing. All this is happening to unbelievers defined by their own sensual appetites. But now, here is the question.

[39:40] Here is on the screen. But what about the only believer in the city? What does all this tell us about Lot? Well, we see the disastrous effects of spiritual compromise.

[39:56] That is a lot of what this chapter is teaching us and telling us. It is what the Israelites needed to garner in the way of instruction.

[40:07] Israel, don't go in and compromise with these people. Don't marry them. Don't take on their ways. Don't practice the things they do. I am sending you in as my hammer.

[40:19] You are the judge that I am using. You are the punishment. So, don't go in and become what they are because I will do to you what I am doing to them. And that is exactly what God did do.

[40:34] I am telling you, this is sobering, isn't it? I want to help you understand more clearly in Scripture because people will go to places like this and try to trip you up. They will use passages like this to say, I don't want to serve a God like this who would burn thousands and thousands of people up.

[40:56] We can understand Lot's spiritual dilemma in the way that the Westminster Confession speaks of how God keeps a believer persevering in faith.

[41:07] That is a doctrine that we hold to here at our church. The perseverance of the saints. That is, the people that God has saved, He will keep saved. They will not be unsaved.

[41:19] They can't even unsave themselves. But also, it's parallel truth how a believer can spiritually compromise him or herself along the way.

[41:33] This is what I just put up on the screen, what I just said. We've got those two parallel truths working together in the life of a believer.

[41:44] This is Lot. So now let me quote from the Westminster Confession to help you better understand how we understand from Scripture its teaching about Lot's compromise as a believer.

[41:58] If I had read this without reading the New Testament saying that Lot was a righteous man, I would have thought Lot was a flake. He's just an unbeliever who just is full of himself. But that's not the case.

[42:09] Not just that. Look at what it says. They whom God hath accepted in his beloved Jesus, effectually called and sanctified by his Spirit, saved, born again, can neither totally nor finally fall away from that state of grace, but shall certainly persevere therein to the end and be eternally saved.

[42:35] Amen. This is a once saved, always saved doctrine. But, as John MacArthur observes, look at this, this definition does not deny the possibility of miserable failings in one's Christian experience.

[42:55] So, the confession goes on to add this, nevertheless, believers may, through the temptations of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur, what?

[43:26] God's displeasure, grieve his Spirit, come to be deprived of some measure of their graces and comforts, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded, hurt, and scandalize others, you see Lot there, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves.

[43:47] There you go, folks. Genesis 19 shows us the lengths God goes to to keep even one believer from his wrath. But we also see how the consequences of Lot's constant capitulation to the world's ways have caught up with him and his family.

[44:04] It's going to be tragic. I mean, the rest of this chapter is just tragic. So I'm outlining what I'm calling six consequences of spiritual compromise from Lot's life.

[44:19] We covered two of those last Sunday. I hope to deal with three of them today. We'll see. And then the final one next week. We'll see how far we get. The first thing that I did with you last Sunday, spiritual compromise corrupts our relationship with God's servants.

[44:37] I'm not going to re-preach that, just refer you. The second one, spiritual compromise corrupts our perspective on sin. We see this in Lot's life.

[44:48] I brought those points out in those particular verses. What has happened to your sense of truth and error, to your level of discernment, to your understanding of obedience to God's ways, when your answer to sin's demands on your life is to commit more sin?

[45:11] And that's what we see in Lot, isn't it? Isn't that what we see? We see that, yes. Who said that? Absolutely. Just unconscionable.

[45:24] Don't act wickedly, brothers. But, if you are, I'll contribute to your wickedness by giving you my virgin daughters for you to ravage them all night long in any way that you want.

[45:37] That is, where do you have to be to be that guy? That's what sin does to you, folks. This is the Westminster Confessions idea.

[45:50] It hardens you. And Lot's grown hardened to these kinds of things. He should have been telling those men, I'll tell you what, it won't do for you to come in here and try to do that because I'm going to mess some of you up.

[46:04] I may not get all of you, but some of you are going to be real messed up. As in, you ain't going to recover. That's not bravado, that's looking evil in the eye and saying, don't come play here.

[46:16] Because we don't play with evil here. Now, if you're going to make that boast, gentlemen, deal with your own evil. be merciless toward your own sin.

[46:31] Give it no quarter. Or don't make a boast like that. It's really hard to, lots finding out, it's really hard to protect those you care about most from sin when you've let sin into your own life month after month and year after year to corrupt your own way of thinking and living.

[46:51] people don't take you seriously, that's what we're seeing. Look at what I have here. He who walks in integrity walks securely, but he who perverts his ways will be found out.

[47:06] This is Lot. He's being found out. It's all coming home to roost. Things are catching up to him. Sodom and how it's poisoned him.

[47:18] Look at this one. Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? No. No.

[47:28] You play with fire you're going to get burned. So the crisis here the crisis is here and Lot is not ready for it. He's not ready for it.

[47:40] His answer was to appease sin. He's trying to appease this. And you can't do that. And look where it gets him in verses 9. 10-11 stand aside.

[47:53] Furthermore they said this one came as an alien and already he's acting like a judge. We're going to treat you worse than them. So they pressed against Lot. They're trying to overpower Lot and beat down the door to get into the house.

[48:05] They're going to drag these men out of the house along with his wife and his daughters and whoever else is in there and they're going to bring them out into the square there and they're going to ravish these people.

[48:16] But the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house and shut the door. This is divine intervention. They then struck the man that were at the doorway of the house with blindness, small and great, so that they wearied themselves.

[48:31] So here they are blind and they're still trying to act on their lust. That didn't stop them. It might have slowed them down a little bit but it didn't stop them. again we look at this and we're just arrested by the power that sin can have over our hearts if we just give into it.

[48:49] The attack intensifies, Lot doesn't have any answer for this. He just tried and it failed miserably. But God's provision and protection walked into the city earlier that evening and God had Lot right where he needed to be to encounter the angels.

[49:07] Now in verses 10 and 11 the men reached out they brought him in they struck the men and we have God's power to safeguard Lot even though Lot is helpless to help himself.

[49:20] Even though he's deceived. God is faithful to those he's chosen instead of part of his own. Look he will not forfeit even one of them. I am so glad that there have been times in my life when through deception or just my own pride or sin or whatever that God blew past every bit of that in my life to reach out and grab me and seize me and bring me where I needed to be.

[49:51] Because if it was left up to me I'd continue to mess it up. It's amazing what God is doing in the life of this man. Spiritual compromise corrupts our perspective on sin.

[50:04] It surely does. Spiritual compromise corrupts our credibility as well. this is just so sad. The message of life. Then the two men said to Lot, whom else of you here?

[50:17] A son-in-law, your sons, your daughters, whomever, whomever you have in the city, whoever is dear to you, close to you, you need to get them now and bring them out of this place. Why? Because we're about to destroy it.

[50:29] The outcry has become so great before the Lord that the Lord sent us to destroy it. Wow. twice this verse, now I want you to look up here on the screen, twice this verse uses the English word destroy to describe what's about to happen to Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities of the valley.

[50:52] Destroy is the same word that God used in Genesis 6, 13 and 17 to say to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence, that's the word Hamas, because of them, and because of this Hamas, because of this violence, I am about to destroy them with the earth.

[51:15] Behold, I, even I, am bringing the flood of water upon the earth to destroy, same word, all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall perish.

[51:29] Same word that he's using here, because we're going to destroy the city. We see in this the life of the messenger. Lot should have been the messenger heralding this message of God's judgment to people, and if he had been a different man, people would have taken him seriously, but they didn't.

[51:50] And it cost them their lives. You see this in verse 14, Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, up, up, get out of this place, the Lord's going to destroy the city.

[52:01] There's the word again. But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be mocking, jesting. Now folks, Lot was terrified. And this certainly showed in his demeanor.

[52:13] He was terrified by what he's being told. But his sons-in-law didn't take him seriously. He took on faith what was told to him by the angels. Lot did. He was full of shock.

[52:25] He was full of fear. Yes, everything he had worked for, planned for, accumulated, held dear, was about to be destroyed. But Lot's own sense of urgency was wasted on these men.

[52:38] Wasted. Each of the verbs in Lot's warning, what does he say to them? He went and spoke in verse 14 to her Mary's daughters.

[52:48] Up! Get out! For the Lord will destroy! Each of those verbs in his warning are in the imperative form. Here's what it means.

[53:00] It means that as Lot approached his sons-in-law, he spoke in a commanding, forceful tone. He was talking to them in an urgent, serious way.

[53:12] But long ago, his sons-in-law had learned to overlook Lot. They simply didn't respect him. They saw him as a double-minded man that spoke out of both sides of his mouth.

[53:23] I'm going to say it, he was a politician. He was. The Bible brings him off as a politician sitting in the gate politicking. It's hard to get votes when you alienate your people in certain quarters of your culture.

[53:41] So you need to figure out how to tell everybody what they want to hear. You can tell I'm kind of cynical about that right now. The point is they didn't respect this man.

[53:53] Lot's compromising walk had robbed his talk of its force and integrity and soberness. His walk and his talk. He'd forfeited that credibility on the altar of constantly compromising his integrity gentlemen.

[54:10] Consequently, people had learned not to take Lot seriously. See, people will figure you out pretty quickly. Even people who aren't real astute at other people, if they're around you long enough, they will recognize what kind of person you are.

[54:27] They will recognize, is this the kind of person I could come to in a moment of crisis? Could I trust this person to sit with me and offer me the comfort and the wisdom that I would need in that moment of crisis?

[54:41] Or is this person a player, a comic, a comedian? Are they joking and jesting their way through life? Do they know how to be sober-minded about the issues of life?

[54:52] Do they have a proper sense of timing and decorum about them as they approach these matters of life? You have to think about that about yourself. They had learned not to take their father-in-law seriously.

[55:07] So he shows up terrified telling them this and they're like yeah right, yeah right. The word that's actually used for mocked in the King James version and jesting in my version, the New American Standard, is like our idea of this.

[55:22] It's kidding around, messing around, toying with them, playing around. Sin teaches us to play at life. It leaves us spiritually unresponsive to the things of God and people learn to relate to us like that.

[55:40] We train them to do that with us. So spiritual compromise corrupts our credibility and what we say to other people about serious spiritual issues affecting their lives.

[55:51] don't expect them to listen to you. Scripture gives us a picture of a really self-absorbed double-minded man who chose his own way, neglected the spiritual welfare of his family and it's going to come tell on him.

[56:06] One commentator summed up well the attitude of the sons-in-law. This is important. I want you to see how other people who are close to Lot, I mean he was given leave by the angels.

[56:18] Go get who are important to you. And so who did he go to? His sons-in-law. Come on guys, God's fixing to destroy the city. Come on, come on, come on. And I'm sure I can see the terror in his eyes.

[56:31] He believes the angels. He goes to these men and what do these men do? That's a good one. You dolt. You expect us to believe that?

[56:44] You're putting it over on us. Not going to work. They just won't have it. Here's what one commentator said about this. Their disregard for Lot's warning as a joke speaks to the narrative's general picture of Lot as a confused, inept person who falls to his own short-sighted ambition.

[57:07] There it is. I'm including that because I'm like, I can't improve on that. It is selfish ambition that has driven Lot in the way that he's lived in these cities and related to these people.

[57:20] Selfish ambition. He has sacrificed his family and those closest to him. He has sacrificed being a witness for God to these people from selfish ambition.

[57:30] It was more important to him to be a player than it was to be faithful to God. God. And now it's coming home to roost. When everything is mounting up, he has no answer for his own life, much less the lives of the people closest to him.

[57:48] Spiritual compromise corrupts our trust in God. I could add to that our trust in God and our obedience to him. 15 through 22, when morning dawn, the angels urged Lot, take up your wife and your two daughters who are here.

[58:03] you're going to be swept away in the punishment of the city. And then notice this, but he hesitated. What's he saying? Get a move on or the consequences for you will be disastrous.

[58:14] But he hesitated. Boy, this is just not what you want to see in a spiritually mature man. Spiritually mature men don't hesitate. They act on behalf of the Lord and they act with conviction, they act with courage, they act with compassion, but they act.

[58:35] They act. They're not found sitting on their hands making excuses, but, but, but, but, but. Lot's responses to the urgency of the angels reveal his heart's astoundingly stubborn spiritual insensitivity.

[58:53] I say to myself, Lot is all but spiritually tone deaf. there's more evidence of the instability, his double mindedness, the confliction in Lot's heart.

[59:09] Look, everything is on the line and Lot hesitates and the question is for what? Don't you want to know why? Why is he hesitating? Does that make sense to you?

[59:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm saying this is what compromise compounded over time will do to you.

[59:31] This is the insensitivity. Now he's kind of like, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is all happening too fast. This is not happening on my timetable.

[59:42] Can you just slow this down, God? Just take a breath, everybody. Eat some fruit. Do something. Do something. What should be most important to you, Lot, isn't.

[59:57] Isn't. Compromise trains you to linger over your sin. Did you hear that? Spiritual compromise trains you to linger over your sin.

[60:11] It trains you to delay regarding repenting from your sin. My brother, Pastor Greg, is very fond of reminding me, reminding us to keep short accounts with our sin.

[60:22] And I appreciate that about him. Your Pastor Greg has an urgency about sin in his own life and sin in the lives of the people that he ministers to. He wants you to keep a short account of sin in your life. In other words, Pastor Greg wants you to repent immediately.

[60:37] As soon as you can become aware of sin in your life, repent. Go to that person, ask for forgiveness. Go to God, ask for forgiveness. And then replace it with godly behavior.

[60:50] This is what Lot should do. He should join the Lord in an act of obedience to the same sense of urgency being communicated to him by the angels. You see that in verses 17, 21, and 22, where they're all saying, get out of here, get out of here.

[61:05] Look at verse 22. Hurry, escape there, for I cannot do anything until you arrive. Therefore, the name of the town was called Zoar small. Notice in verse 16, God's actions in this one verse, but he hesitated, so the men did what?

[61:24] Seize his hand and the hand of his wife. So now the angels have Lot's hand and his wife's hand and the hands of their two daughters. So the angels have got all of them kind of wrapped up.

[61:37] They put hands on them. Why? For the compassion of the Lord was upon him. Folks, you can't get rid of that. You can't scrub it off.

[61:49] You can't outrun it. God will hound you with his compassion and catch you. Yeah, hallelujah. Amen, brother.

[62:00] This is the compassion of the cross. It is a seeking, heat-seeking missile of goodness and mercy and grace. grace. And what did they do because God had compassion on them?

[62:15] They brought him out. They brought him out. This is not the picture of a man who's telling the angels, hurry up you guys, come on. And he's, you know, Lot's leading the way, hoofing it.

[62:27] This is a man who's got, another man, he's got his hand and he's kind of being drug along with his wife. Ow. Being drug along with his wife.

[62:40] And his daughters. The whole family's being literally drug out of the city as if against their will. Such is the compassion of Almighty God. Folks, I could just bawl right now in front of you thinking of the times in my life that God has seized my hand and brought me to where I needed to be.

[62:59] And I'm so thankful. There was a time in my life when I ran from God as a coward because God made it clear to me he was calling me into ministry and it scared me to death and I ran.

[63:12] I was Jonah. I ran. And I tried to hide from God and convince him I'm not ministry material God. I know me too well. I'm not. You made a mistake. I said that to God with my own mouth.

[63:25] Many, many years ago. And God grabbed me and brought me where I needed to be. And man, because I never would have chose this for myself.

[63:36] Never. Well, in verse 17, God gives clear verbal direction for his salvation. Do this and you will live. You see that in 17? Escape for your lives.

[63:49] Do not look behind. Do not stay anywhere in the valley. Escape to the mountains or you'll be swept away. And I'm so glad at this point that this has finally gripped Lot's heart and he says, okay.

[64:01] Is that what happens? No. But Lot said to them, oh no, my lords. He's objecting.

[64:13] What in the world do you have to object to, friend? Well, he doesn't want to go to the mountains. He wants to go to another of the cities of the valley and the town Lot wants to flee to is Zoar, a miniature Sodom.

[64:27] It means small, a miniature Sodom. Zoar is on the list of destruction. Lot has received direct instruction in how the Lord wants him to handle the situation and Lot has the temerity and audacity to inform the angels they don't know what they're talking about.

[64:45] Oh no, my lords. That's what he's saying. Oh no, no, no, no. Wait a minute, wait a minute. What did you say? Mountains? I am not a mountain guy. A cave?

[64:58] Are you kidding? I'm a city dude. Look at these boots. I'm a city guy. This is his attitude. Verses 19 and 20.

[65:14] Craziness. Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight. So now he's going to try to convince them. And it's interesting to me, I can't escape to the mountains. I'm not a mountain guy. The disaster will overtake me.

[65:25] And now this is his convincing argument. And he says it several times. And I want to flee to this city. It's small. Now it's small. I know that means you're going to have to spare it.

[65:35] But look, in the greater scheme of things, isn't it just tiny? It's just itty bitty. So it's just not a big deal if you don't kill all these people if I go and live there instead so that my life can be saved.

[65:47] Do you see what he's doing? Do you ever in your life have those moments when you say, oh, it's just a small sin. It's not that big a deal. I don't need to go ask for forgiveness.

[65:59] They probably didn't even notice I said it. And you give yourself that way out. Or whatever. Now, come on.

[66:10] Am I the only one in this room that does sin like that sometime? Right? See, yeah. All right, don't play games like that. That is a first-class ticket to disaster.

[66:22] Because God will not overlook it. He will not overlook it. And he doesn't overlook it in this man's life. Lord, I know you've told me clearly to do this and to do that, but it's just a small thing for me to do this thing instead.

[66:37] I think it's a little bit better plan. I know me better than you. It's just a little tweaking to make things more suited to what I know I can handle. In the compassion of the Lord, what does God say?

[66:50] I'll grant you this request as well, but you need to get there quickly because I cannot act until you're there. I will not act until you're there because I will not sweep you away in the punishment of the wicked.

[67:05] Wow! It just doesn't stop. verses 21 and 22. Hurry escape.

[67:16] I can't do anything until you arrive. It's just a tremendous outpouring of God's grace on an undeserving lot. By God's grace, he allows Lot to pursue this last vestige of his heart's desire for what is familiar to him.

[67:33] That's what he wants. Lot wants what's familiar. And the Lord allows Lot to come to the end of himself. How? How does God help Lot in granting that request to finally come to the end of himself?

[67:48] Look at verse 30. Lot went up from Zoar and what did he do? What does it say? You've got to laugh.

[68:02] And it's his idea. It's his idea. Lot went up from Zoar and stayed in the mountains and his two daughters with him for he was afraid to stay in Zoar and he stayed in a cave.

[68:15] Him and his two daughters. He ended up there anyway. But God had to let him come to the end of himself. He went to Zoar. Okay, fine, I'll let you do your plan and you're going to find out how well your plan is going to work for you.

[68:28] And it didn't. And so we're supposed to learn the lesson. Maybe I should have listened to God in the first place. Right?

[68:39] Maybe I should get a little bit more familiar with my God and how my God wants me to live and maybe I could avoid some of this hard-headed, prideful stuff that happens in my life. The lessons just aren't hard to tweak out, are they?

[68:52] Don't doubt the wisdom and goodness of God. Spiritual compromise corrupts our servant leadership. I want to end with this real quickly. God's wisdom is best. You see this in 23 through 26.

[69:04] The sun rose over the earth, had risen over the earth, and so God rained down the destruction that He promised. Verse 24, He overthrew the cities in 25, but His wife from behind Him.

[69:16] I think that that is a very telling phrase. Listen again, but His wife from behind Him. Why did they put that in there?

[69:29] See, I ask myself stuff like this. Lord, why do I need to know that? Why is that little detail important that it was put in the scriptures to stand for all eternity? Not a jot and a tittle will change for all eternity.

[69:41] But His wife from behind Him looked back and she became a pillar of salt. Right? I'm going to use Matt. Matt's been told very expressly by the Lord. Take your family.

[69:53] Here they sit. Right here. Get up and get out because disaster is coming. And part of the instruction is, which He said, don't look back.

[70:04] Alright? Now, I know Matt well enough is why I'm using him. I know Matt well enough. One of the things He's going to say to His little ducklings is this. We're all going to waddle in this direction. I'm going to be towing up the back.

[70:16] Do not turn around and look back. And if one of you were to start to go, go, ah, ah, don't look back, keep going. That's leadership. Why did Lot let her be behind him?

[70:31] Because he's thinking of him. He's out front. Not to lead her. He's getting himself out of dodge. So when she went to look back, he didn't know.

[70:47] He didn't protect her. he didn't put his wife in a position where he could take care of her and shepherd her and safeguard her from the danger that he knew was imminent.

[71:03] It's not like he was ignorant. This is the insensitivity that he'd come to. I wonder how far did he get before he realized, where's, where's what's her face?

[71:16] I don't know her name. Where's my wife? There's no wife. Daughters, did you see?

[71:28] See, they didn't see, they didn't know. It's sad. So Lot loses his wife. The point of the section is that Lot's wife died.

[71:39] And much of the responsibility for her death rests with Lot. You say, Jeff, you sure? Why in the world would you blame poor Lot? I mean, well, Lot didn't have to have, I say it up here on the screen, he didn't have to have all the answers, he didn't have to fully understand the situation he was in, you know, any more than I do at times.

[71:57] He just needed to obey the messengers of God leading him and his family to safety. That's all he needed. He had one job. Obey God. Obey the Lord. Be faithful.

[72:10] Now look, Lot's wife is charged with looking back. She's charged with violating I get that. And while she alone paid the penalty for her disobedience, Lot's own disobedience through compromise over the years, I think it set up his entire family for failure.

[72:27] Guys, I do. I think this is a powerful lesson to spiritual men, to men who love God and are made holy in the Lord Jesus Christ about leading their Listen, we live in a place and in a time that there is a constant threat against our families.

[72:43] If you don't think it's real, come over to my house any time you want and ask me about my family and I will tell you. I will tell you about the threat out there and what it can do to you and how it can rip your heart out of your chest.

[72:56] It is real. And you need to be ready to face it for what it is. And the only way that you can do that is to love Jesus with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love others as you love yourself.

[73:09] Lot didn't do that. He didn't do that. As a man charge to lead your family in faithfulness to the Lord, if you are unrepentant and if you are compromising about sin in your life or about sin in the life of your wife and your kids, you are keeping yourself and your family in a spiritually compromised position for future moral and spiritual failure.

[73:34] you see that at the bottom of the screen, what I just said. Spiritual compromise corrupts our credibility, our trust, our spiritual leadership and service to other people.

[73:49] Whatever empty pleasure we find or feel from our compromises with the world, it is sure to cost us in ways far beyond what that momentary pleasure is worth, what that pursuit of the stuff of the world is worth.

[74:03] This is Lot. Lot had so much ambition about the world and the society around him that he was willing to sacrifice his family on the altar of his ambition. Compromise and worldliness may not seem or feel empty at the time, but be assured from God's word and from the example of Lot that fitting in with the culture, giving in to your fleshly appetites, even in small ways, leads to self-ruin and potentially to the ruin of those closest to you.

[74:32] Now, I've got to end there. I know that ends on an in-your-face kind of note, but there it is. It's not good news in verse 26. He lost his wife. And then when we see what's going to happen with his daughters, I don't feel sorry for Lot because what his daughters do to him at the end of this chapter is exactly what he did to them.

[74:53] Right? They learned it from their daddy. Well, I'm not going to re-preach what I just preached, so I'm closing it.

[75:06] Let's pray. Father God in heaven, we are sobered, truly we are sobered. And I pray the men in my midst, I pray my brothers in Christ, even as I have been, are challenged deeply in their spirits to say, you know, Lord, I do have this one sin.

[75:24] And I've played with it for too long, Lord. I've played with it for just too long. And if I'm honest with myself, as God is being honest with me, I have not taken every effort to kill it as a desire that desires what God forbids.

[75:43] And so, Lord, I want to repent of that. I pray that you'll use this message, oh Lord, to convict me to convict my brothers that we cannot afford to play with sin.

[75:55] We cannot afford to compromise with the culture and take the culture's viewpoint on any aspect of what you say is wrong. And so I pray, Father, in our confession that we would come to call our sin what you call it, to view our sin in the way you view it, to have your perspective on sin and to be cleansed from the culture's perspective, that we might truly repent and speak the truth in love to others from the testimony of our own lives as the Holy Spirit has worked to save us and that we will become that wonderful proof of someone who's walking around brought from death to life in the Lord Jesus Christ.

[76:36] May our message match with our walk and our talk so that we can be people of integrity, spiritual integrity. And I pray that we will walk with you, Lord, and depend on you.

[76:48] May my brothers and my sisters be blessed in your word and instructed in the way that we should go for your glory. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.