Wednesday Night Bible Study
by Mark McCool
First Apostolic Church of Knoxville (Knoxville, TN)
Kind: Bible study
Scripture: Genesis 19:1-14, Genesis 13:12, Psalm 1:1

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/mark-mccool--wednesday-night-bible-study-20
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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I'm excited to study the word of the Lord with all of you tonight. I'd call your attention to the book of Genesis, the 19th chapter. The book of Genesis, the 19th chapter. And I would ask you to indulge me just a bit because I'm going to read several verses and lay a foundation for our study tonight. The book of Genesis, the 19th chapter. Begin reading at verse number one. And there came two angels to Sodom at evening. And Lot sat in the gate of Sodom. And Lot seeing them rose up to meet them. And he bowed himself with his face toward the ground. And he said, "Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, unto your servants's house, and tar all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early and go on your ways." And they said, "Nay, but we will abide in the street all night." And he pressed upon them greatly, and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house. And he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. And before they laid down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter. And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came into thee this night? Bring them out unto us that we may know them. And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him. And he said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughters which I which have not known man. Let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do you to them as is good in your eyes, only unto these men, do nothing, for there came they under the shadow of my roof." And they said, "Stand back." And they said again, "This one fellow came into sojourn, and he will needs be a judge. Now will we deal worse with thee than with them?" And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut the door. And they smoked the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great, so that they wearied themselves to find the door. And the men said unto Lot, "Hast thou here any besides, son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters? Whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place, for we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxing great before the face of the Lord, and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it." And Lot went out and spake unto his son sons-in-law which married his daughters and said up, Get ye out of this place. For the Lord will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law. For a few moments tonight, I would entitle our Bible study, The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time. The Wrong Place, The Wrong Time. Let's pray. Mighty God, we're grateful for your word. We thank you for its encouragement. We thank you for its warnings. We thank you for its guidance and direction. Now, Lord, let us study your word this night. Let it minister to our hearts. Lord, let it give us the knowledge that we should have. Lord, let us have the wisdom to receive your word this night. For all this, we're grateful and thankful. In the name of Jesus, we do pray. Let everyone say, "Amen." >> In this passage of scripture, the Bible said, "Bring them out of this place." And then the angel said, "We will destroy this place." And then they said, "Get you out of this place. The Bible mentions several types of places that one can find oneself in. I did a little word search on places in the Bible. The Bible mentions these places. High places, highest places, low places, miry places, resting places, besieged places, decayed places, waste places, desolate places, fattish places. Been there. Broad places, close places, crooked places, divers places, ruined places, holy places, lower places, deep places, steep places, slippery places, stony places, dry places, secret places, dark places, lurking places, pleasant places, and yes, heavenly places. I want to be in the right place with the Lord. I want to find myself in the right place. I don't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There's a statement that you hear some folks make using that term or play on words that says sometimes you need to know your place. What is my place? Cambridge dictionary defines the phrase thusly. to know your place, to accept your position within society and organization, your family, and not to want to improve it. For example, if one says, "I just get on my job and do as I'm told. I know my place." Know your place. To accept the behavior that that is expected of you. Well, I submit to you tonight that we need to be aware of the place we find ourselves. And if we're in the wrong place and we're in the wrong at the wrong time spiritually, there's some places we can walk out of and we need to leave. There's some places that we don't need to dwell and find ourselves in in the first place. I'm sure most of us could tell a story about by chance or by a poor decision when we found oursel in the wrong place at the wrong time. The days before GPS, I remember being on the East Coast, Sister Jamie was a I didn't need a GPS because she knows how to read a map. Still can. I I would trust I would trust her and an atlas over about any GPS that there is. We travel the country that way. But it wasn't the map reader. It was the driver not listening properly. And we got off on one of those exits just north of Washington DC that said exit only, no re-entry. Now, if you don't know what that means is, that means you're going to have to drive halfway through Maryland before you can get back on the interstate. And needless to say, where we got off, we realized pretty quickly we were in a place that we didn't need to be. And it was quite perilous and quite adventurous for a little while. So I submit to you all of us at one time or another likely have found ourselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. But truly in a spiritual as well as natural sense, this is where Lot and his family found themselves. It was never Lot's intention to abide in Sodom. But the situation was this. Lot who was close family and communing with Abraham, God's chosen people, the one who God had covenanted with. He separated himself from the true place with Abraham where he should be. And he separated himself because of conflict in the middle of success. Think about that just a minute. Sometimes in the most successful times in our lives, if we aren't careful, a little conflict will become so large that we will separate ourselves from the place we really need to be rather than settling what would turn out to be a minor conflict. What was the conflict? their herdsmen were arguing over grazing rights because both of them were so so blessed with cattle. Now, at the time that seemed like such a big thing. Your cows are eating our grass. What do you mean that we can't graze our cattle over here? And at that moment, Lot and Abraham that they were not in conflict themselves, but it was their servants who had the conflict. And the conflict became so great that the Bible says that Lot pitched his tents toward the wellwatered plains of Sodom. He didn't plan on going to Sodom. He didn't plan on buying a house in Sodom. He didn't plan on that being his abote. He was just going to move in that direction because the immediate conflict could be solved by taking his cattle toward the wellwatered plains of Sodom. Lot did you ever think that your family would be in such a perilous place when you made the choice to pitch your tent toward those green plains and when you made your decision to separate yourself from the chosen one, the covenanted one, Abraham, could you imagine that you would be sitting at the gate of Sodom seeing guests that were messengers of God come to the gates and bidding them to come and dwell in your house. Did you imagine or visualize the press of perversion that would knock at your door? In your wildest imagination, could you see a scenario that you would offer your virgin daughters to degenerates and a debased mob to try and satisfy their vile lusts. Genesis 13:12 said, "Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan. Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent toward Sodom. But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly. There's an old vaudeville slapstick oneliner that a fellow runs in in the skit and says, "Doctor, doctor, I broke my arm in three places." Then which the doctor says, "Well, the thing you ought to do is stay out of those three places." I've got news for you. There's some places we don't need to go. There's some directions we should never pitch our tents toward. You see, we can compromise our direction just slightly, thinking, I'll never go there. But there was a little conflict when I was in the church. There was a little conflict and I because of those things, I'm going to withdraw myself and I see some greener pastures nearby. You better be careful before you pull your family up and pull your existence up because of some conflict that seems so big. When we zoom ahead to where our text leads us, the conflict over grazing rights seems quite minuscule. But at the time, Lot drew some lines way too deeply. You see, we find folks saying, "Well, I'm just trying to find my place." Let me tell you, it's God's will that you be in commune, be in and commune with his people. It is God's will that you find the house of God and you put down roots there. Don't ever find yourself thinking that you can just drift away a little bit and everything's going to be all right. I'm not going to sin. I'm just going to move toward sin. There's a pl some places we should not find ourselves. Psalms 1:1 said, "Blessed is man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor siteth in the seat of the scornful." There's three places we ought not to find ourselves. Number one, it's not my place and it's not your place to let the ungodly counsel you. >> Blessed is man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. You ought not to be listening to ungodly counsel. >> Ungodly counsel will give you ungodly counsel. They walk in the wrong place. Ungodly counsel has ungodly ethics, ungodly morals and ungodly values. >> Now I cast no dispersions on any vocation. Understand? But you would be surprised where some folks seek counsel. Many folks will listen to the many gentlemen will listen to the words of their barber before they'll seek godly counsel. I'm not saying all barbers are ungodly. So don't don't interpret that way. But I would tell you this. If you're going to go to your unsaved or ungodly barber for counsel, won't you let the pastor come give you a haircut? I'm kidding. and I won't do that. We must be cautious to not listen to ungodly counsel. Ungodly counsel will tell married couples that are having issues, oh, to try an extrammarital affair to spice up your marriage. Ungodly counsel will tell you to do unethical, immoral, and even illegal things to get ahead. I don't want to be found in that place, the place of walking in ungodly counsel. Nor standeth in the way of sinners. Don't find yourself standing in the way that sinners stand. Being in the place that sinners like to be. You see, standing still is not always taking a stand. We must take a stand for righteousness and holiness and walking with God at all times. So, I don't want to be in the counsel of the ungodly, standing in the ways of sinners. And there's another place I don't want to be. I don't want to find myself self seated in the seat of the scornful. That term scornful or scorn the root defined means contempt or disdain felt toward a person or object considered despicable or unworthy. There's a lot of folks would like to pay extra to have that seat to sit. You see, judgmental people are usually scornful. They find themselves in critical condition. Now, if I understand the levels of seriousness, when someone is put in the hospital, they evaluate them and they give their condition. They'll say someone is in satisfactory condition, good condition, stable condition, and it goes all the way down and reduces itself to critical condition. Critical conditions right before you're dead. And in a spiritual s sense, if we find ourselves constantly criticizing