What a disagreeable chapter this is! I doubt whether there is a Christian in the country who would list this chapter in a list of his top ten of Bible chapters. So why are we spending time on it? Indeed I plan to spend two weeks in this chapter!

Why not just slip on by to some more pleasing section?

Here are some reasons:

· Just because a truth is unpalatable doesn't mean it should be ignored.

· The events of this chapter are frequently referred to in the rest of the Bible where they are deemed of real significance.

· All of the Bible is God's word and all has been recorded explicitly for our benefit.

Rom.15:4 "For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

I wonder how many of you have visited the valleys of South Wales. Sometimes it is said of those valleys that God did His best there but that man had responded by doing his worst. Beautiful scenery with hills and mountains spoiled by slag heaps and coal tips and a destruction of the environment that beggars belief.

Well we'll allow the Welsh their poetic licence as they patriotically talk up the virtues of their own country. But Sodom and Gomorrah surely have a stronger claim than those Welsh valleys!

When Lot originally chose to head of in their direction it was because the Jordan valley was a wonderfully fertile area. The description in Gen.13:10 says it was "like the garden of the LORD". However not many years later – at the end of this chapter – the whole area with the exception of one small town would be a smouldering lifeless wasteland.

Our task is to understand just why that was and to learn some serious lessons from it all.

The way the rest of the Bible refers to Sodom and Gomorrah makes it very plain to us just how we should read this chapter. There are various strands in the wider teaching of the Bible that help us appreciate the issues at stake:

1. The extreme sinfulness of Sodom

2. The judgment that falls on Sodom is that of total destruction

3. The judgment that falls on Sodom is to be understood as exemplary of what will happen to all sinners on the Day of Judgment

4. And yet there is hope in the mercy of God.

Sin and Wickedness

In the preceding chapter the LORD has told Abraham that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has become very great and the outcry against them has come to His attention. In terms that were easy for Abraham to understand the LORD told him that He was sending messengers to verify the charges. The clear implication was that if the charges were proven then judgment would fall upon guilty cities.

The charges are not themselves something recent. We must not be tempted to think that the judgment that does fall upon Sodom is some kind of knee-jerk reaction to extreme wickedness and that every happened in a sudden way. Back in ch.13 we've already been told that the men of Sodom were great sinners against the LORD. Some time later they are defeated in battle and carried off to the north – but the experience doesn't seem to have sobered them any. They haven't learnt any lessons. Abraham delivered them in order to help his nephew Lot and back in their own city again they seem to be just as bad as before – if not worse.

The judgment of God when it does fall does not do so as the result of some fit of pique or frustration. The exact opposite is the case. In fact there is so much delay in the coming of judgment that men often mistake the reason for the delay.

2Pet.3:9 "The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."

In a number of ways life was continuing pretty much as usual in Sodom – the usual patterns of life were being observed – Lk.17:28 "they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building" – but this was accompanied by open and flagrant sin – the wickedness of Sodom was very much "in your face" wickedness:

Is.3:9 "For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it."

Jeremiah saw Sodom as the very epitome of evil: in describing the sinfulness of God's people in his own day what more could be said than they were like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah:

Jer.23:14 "But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah."

The subsequent events that are recounted in this chapter illustrate just why this assessment was made.

Let's now return to our text.

The two men/angels arrive in the city of Sodom and their mission is straightforward. They are to evaluate whether or not the city is ripe for judgment, in the event that it is judgment will fall.

While Lot greets the men and invites them to his home it is clear that their original plan was to spend the night in the public square. After all they had gone there on a fact finding mission and what better place to observe the night life than to go to the public square. But Lot prevails upon them – his very fears are indicative of what is to come.

In the event the men have to do next to nothing to discover the wickedness of the city as that wickedness comes to the very door of the house they're staying in.

The men of the city come to Lot's house and demand access to his visitors. Moses at this point is careful to emphasise that the mob was not a small unrepresentative grouping but included young and old, everyone seems to be involved.

The particular sin that is highlighted here is that of homosexual practice/homosexual rape – Sodom has lent its name to the sin of sodomy. As the rest of Scripture speaks of the reason that for Sodom's destruction it always says the same thing:

Peter describes Sodom's characteristic behaviour in the following ways: it was "sensual conduct of the wicked", it involved "lawless deeds" which were both seen and heard, they "indulge(d) in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority."

Jude says of them that they "indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire."

The angels have no need to see any more. The outcry that has risen against this city is fully justified. There can now only be one outcome. Judgment.

Judgment

God reveals Himself in the Bible as a just and holy God who will not tolerate sin. Patience and long-suffering do mark our God who is not looking to see how quickly He might punish sin rather He prefers delay in which the sinner might leave his sin and repent.

However the story of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah shows the LORD's very real hatred of sin – sin is serious and the punishment is serious too.

The angels have decided what must happen – nothing but judgment will do. But even then Lot is urged to go and warn any of his family that might be present in the city and tell them to flee the wrath to come. Even in wrath God remembers His mercy.

Once Lot has been got out of the city and away to a place of safety action can be taken against the wicked Sodom. The time for divine retribution has arrived.

Sodom and Gomorrah are totally destroyed. The wonderful area that had been compared to the garden of the Lord becomes "burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, where no plant can sprout," cf. Deut.29:23. The whole place has been destroyed and when Abraham sees it the next day it is smoking like a furnace.

And what of survivors? Apart from those the angels brought out – Lot and his two daughters – there are none! (See Is.1:9.) The place is left totally without inhabitants.

Unless we understand the notion of Divine Judgment we will never begin to understand just what it was that happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom – an example

The reason that we should take note of what happened to Sodom is not some quirky interest we might have in ancient history or in archaeological explorations. The reason we must learn from Sodom is that the Bible makes it very plain that what happened to Sodom is a model of what will happen to all the ungodly.

Time and again in the OT when judgment is threatened or spoken about a comparison is made with what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah. If the people of God continue to excite the wrath of God then they must not be surprised if He indeed treats them as He treated these ancient cities.

When we turn to the NT the story is the same: listen to how Peter writes about Sodom and Gomorrah:

2Pet.3:6 "making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly".

Or Jude:

Jude 7 "serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

We must be careful that we don't misread this. The Biblical writers are not saying that because Sodom and Gomorrah were particularly wicked that they merited a particularly severe punishment. They were especially wicked but their judgment merely shows God's settled disposition against sin. Just because in our own estimation our own sin might not appear to be so flagrant or evil does not exempt us from wrath if we continue in it.

Indeed Jesus Himself spoke to self-righteous and outwardly upright towns in His own day and warned them of committing and continuing in sin that made them less excusable than the inhabitants of those destroyed cities.

Mt.11:20-24 "Then (Jesus) began to denounce the cities where most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you."

In Lk.10 Jesus sent out 72 of His followers to go out preaching peace and declaring the presence of the Kingdom of God. Yet He knew that many of the places they would go would reject the message. As He comments on that reaction He declared what the outcome for those towns would be:

Lk.10:12 "I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town."

Gross, immoral, indecent sin calls for judgment and the result is total destruction and ruin. But that destruction and ruin is less than what sinning against the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ! How serious sin is!!

A hope of mercy

In the sorry tale of Sodom and Gomorrah there is yet a glimmer of hope. Abraham has been praying for the city and all is not lost. Lot, while being far from perfect (I hope to look more closely at Lot in a couple of weeks time), is nevertheless saved and with him his two daughters.

Consider just for a moment v.29 "So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived."

The angels have had a hard time in getting Lot to flee but they have persevered – he is saved. The LORD has even allowed Lot to flee to the nearby small town of Zoar rather than have to flee directly to the mountains. But Lot is rescued. Not for Lot's sake but for Abraham's!

Now in the NT era in which we live God's holy hatred of sin has been seen even more starkly. Sin is seen to be so very serious that it took the death of the LORD Jesus Christ Himself to satisfy the wrath of God against sin.

He came specifically in order to take as it were the fire and brimstone of God's wrath upon Himself so that we need not be exposed to that danger ourselves. He has sent out His messengers to make known what has been done; and He backs His messengers with His intercession in Heaven.

We too need to heed the voice of those messengers to flee from the wrath to come. We don't have to flee to a mountain or to a small town somewhere but we do need to flee to Christ for refuge. Jesus is the One "who delivers us from the wrath to come" (2Thess.1:10) Judgment is stayed until all the elect of God have safely trusted in Christ. Have you done that? Or are you still dillying, dallying in a precarious position exposed to this wrath of God?

Paul explained it the Athenians in these terms:

Acts 17:30-31 "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

The reaction was a mixed one: some mocked – are you such a one? Don't be a mocker – Lot's sons-in-law heard Lot's warnings but they made light of it all. If only they had taken him seriously they could have been saved. Others said they wanted to know more – that is no bad thing unless you prevaricate for too long! Some responded positively to what Paul had to say to them and believed. Will you not be like them?