Hospitality and Judgment: Lot in Sodom (Genesis 19 Examined)

The Bible study from two Wednesday nights ago, in which I began with Genesis 18, and we went through the story of Abraham serving the three strangers. One of them is God himself, and then two accompanying angels, the hospitality of Abraham. And then last week, Stephen stepped in and taught also on hospitality. I'm very grateful, and I want to continue on into Genesis 19. All right, we want to go carefully through the text, and whenever you go through an ancient text, but particularly when you go through the Bible, before you cast judgment on the Bible, or the characters within the story, consider the customs, the mores of the time, consider the different social pressures, the stigma that exists in that day that may not in this day. And just remember, you have to adjust your focus a little bit, and don't allow only your own assumptions guide your reading of the text. Try to understand what it would have been like to hear the

story 3,000 years ago, because you really can't get at the meaning of the text unless you know, or at least you're trying to interpret the scripture according to who the story was written for. And what I mean by that is, the meaning of the story is the meaning that the ancient audience would have given it. So if you try to understand the story only within a 21st century perspective, you're going to miss all kinds of things. But if you can try, you might not know the customs, you might not know the culture, you might not know the expectations, the assumptions of the ancient audience, but at least try to understand that they might have been different from yours or our cultures. And so we're reading a story that is at times difficult to read, because some of the characters behave in ways that we just don't expect, and then it doesn't seem like the narrator of the story is pronouncing judgment on what

the characters did. So you don't have the narrator stepping in and saying, and he did evil in the sight of the Lord. Then we would know. Just tell us what he did, and then move on to the next part of the story. So whoever wrote Genesis, and tradition says that Moses wrote Genesis, it wasn't his way to always pronounce judgment on the character of the story he expected you to understand how the story is flowing and did the character turn out, did the story turn out well for the character or not? And that's God's judgment. All right, so we're in chapter 19 verse one, that there were the two angels that accompanied God who were hosted by Abraham. And remember, they were sent on ahead to Sodom. Abraham has just learned that Sodom and Gomorrah are going to be destroyed. In fact, that was a city that a few chapters earlier, he had helped to save. Okay, so he has a little bit

of, he has, I don't know how you put, I don't know what that expression is, I've lost track of what that expression is. Skin in the game? There it is. He has worked for Sodom and Gomorrah before at least trying to save some. And then he finds out that God's going to destroy the city because there's such an uproar against the injustice of the city. And then he tries to negotiate God down to, if there are 10 righteous people in the city, will you save the city? And that's where God in Abraham leave it. And, and then the two angels are sent on ahead to Sodom. Presumably, they're there to investigate whether or not there are 10 righteous people in the city. But they also, they're, they're angels, they know. So they're there to save Lot, his wife, his two daughters, and their two son-in-laws. That would be six people. There aren't 10 righteous people in the city. There are six people that

God's going to save. Okay, that's where we are. The two angels came to Sodom in the evening. There are references to the time of day for some reason. And I think that, that reason will become clear a little bit later. But references to the time of day, they come in the evening to Sodom. And in the evening, Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. Okay, does that mean that Lot's just hanging out at the city gate? He's just, you know, watching the traffic go by? Is this a nice spot to watch? Or is he a people watcher? Is that why he's at the city gate? No, there's a case of once again, that would be our way of interpreting from the 21st century. But this is an expression from antiquity that refers to somebody who is an elected official. Sitting in the gate of the city means you're one of the, one of the mayors of the city, or one of the

elected officials. Okay. So remember, he's not from Sodom. He chose Sodom. And he came with quite a bit of wealth because he earned a lot of wealth, or was given a lot of wealth when he went with Abraham down to Egypt. They brought a lot of wealth back with them. And then their wealth was so great that some of the herdsmen started arguing with the herdsmen of Abraham. So they had split up and Lot chose to go down towards Sodom, towards what was a richer, more promising looking area to live. And now, presumably within a few years, he's become an elected official. Money talked then, it talks now. Surely he was given this kind of position because of the wealth that he brought into the situation. So he's sitting in the gate of Sodom. Okay. I misspoke. I said that the expression sitting in the gate doesn't just mean that you're sitting in a gate. It means you're an elected official. But it

also means that you're on your post as an elected official, and you happen to be at the gate of the city. Okay. So it means two things, literally sitting in the gate of the city, but also you're an elected official. Okay. And so he's sitting there at the gate. It doesn't mean that he's in charge of Sodom and Gomorrah. It just means he's one of the men who's elected. And he has the evening post. Okay. Which means he's probably a junior elected official, not the primary person in charge of Sodom and Gomorrah. He has the evening shift and the two angels walk by. Lot would know everybody that lives in the city. So he sees two walk through and he, he doesn't recognize them from anywhere. It says, when Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed himself with his face to the earth and said, my Lords, please turn aside to your servant's house and spend the night and wash

your feet. Then you may rise up early and go on your way. Who does that sound like? Previous chapter, remember Abraham did the same thing when the three strangers were walking by. He bowed himself down and then he said, turn aside and let me serve you. And then you can just, you can get up and go on your way. I see you're in a hurry, but would you just allow me to show you hospitality for a little while? Lot does the same thing. So it seems like it, it's a, there's, the New Testament calls Lot a righteous man and here there's righteousness. He, he shares similarities with Abraham. They said, and here's where the similarities between the two stories part ways. The angels said, no, we will spend the night in a town square. Okay. When the three came to Abraham, they accepted his hospitality. When the angels, the two angels come by, they don't accept his hospitality. No, we're not going to

go into your house. We're going to stay in the town square. Okay. They're probably going to the town square because that's where maybe there's a little more activity going on. And they might be able to carry out whatever investigation they want. And then they're waiting for God's signal. Okay. They don't want to be inside Lot's house when that happens. But Lot pressed them strongly. So they turned aside to him and entered his house. So they reluctantly become guests. Now this is an ancient trope. It's not just ancient. It's still used today in storytelling. It's called, the trope is called the perilous host, the perilous host. It's always characterized by the host that makes you stay and gives you hospitality. You don't want to turn them down, but you're staying against your wishes and a bench against your better judgment. They're a perilous host. They're going to get you in trouble. Scripture uses this particular trope several times. It happens with a story that

we'll get to in the book of Judges with a Levitic, a Levite who goes with his, with his concubine into a city. And they're not supposed to stay, but they're begged to stay. And then tragedy happens because they stayed. There's a prophet later on. We're going to find out in the book of first and second kings, a prophet who was told, go send a message to the king and then come straight back. Don't turn to the right or left. Don't accept anyone's invitation. You come straight back after you delivered your message. And the prophet decided he was going, after he delivered the message, he was going to stray and he was going to go have dinner at somebody's house at their invitation. And then he ends up being eaten by lions, the perilous host. It's not just in the Bible. This trope is used all the time outside of the Bible too. Whenever somebody, whenever you're reading a story and they turn down

an invitation to come to your house or to the host's house, but then they're talked into it, you know, something bad's going to happen. You know something bad's going to happen. Right? Okay. There's, there's no doubt about it. I can't think of any exception in Scripture where there's not something bad that happens when you've turned down and turned down an invitation and you take it anyway. Literary tropes happen all the time in the Bible, in ancient literature, but particularly in the Bible. In the ancient world, if you heard a story about a soldier wearing somebody else's armor, you know that person's going to die. You know. Okay. It happens in the Bible with Ahab, he wears a infantryman's garb and he gets killed. In the story of Homer's Iliad, Achilles won't go into battle. He's refusing to fight because he's carrying out an act of vengeance against his, against his king who dishonored him. And so he's just going to sit the war

out, even if his people lose the battle. So one day his best friend decides, well, if, if Achilles isn't going to fight, I'm not just going to sit by and watch my countrymen die on the battlefield. I'm going to put on Achilles' armor and they'll think, my countrymen will think in the battlefield that Achilles has shown up and they'll be confident again and they'll turn the tide of the war. But you know the moment he dons someone else's armor, he's doomed. He's dead. He's as good as a dead man. It's just an ancient literary trope happens all the time, every time a reader heard about or read about some soldier putting on someone else's armor, they're dead. This is why the story of David's so unusual because he, he puts on Saul's armor and you're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, we had so much invested in you. You're a shepherd. You did all these great things. No. But then he takes

it off. And so you know, already before he goes into battle, he's good. All right. These kinds of tropes are abundant. And this is one of those, the perilous host. So against their wishes, they stay in Lot's house. And this is going to lead to great deal of tragedy. Okay. So he pressed them strongly, verse three, they turned aside to him and entered his house and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and day eight. Okay. Now think about the story from Abraham in chapter 18. What did Abraham do when he started gathering up the feast? The first thing he did was he goes in peaks inside the tent and he asked Sarah, can you need some dough, get some dough really quick together? And then he goes over to one of his servants and says, take one of the, one of the best calves and we're going to, we're going to have steak and bread. And then Abraham himself starts

waiting on the guests. But look at this with Lot. You're supposed to, these are, imagine a two paneled painting. Okay. You're supposed to look at them side by side. Sometimes we do, we, I remember Sunday papers used to do this. They would have the funnies, the comic section. And one of the activities that you could do in the Sunday comics was you see what's different about this picture from this picture. See what I mean? Okay. That's why we have Genesis 18 and 19 right next to each other. First of all, they're part of one big story, but they're also meant to be set side by side so that you can compare and contrast and see what's different here. What's different here with Lot? Let me read that one more time. He pressed them strongly. So he turned aside to him and entered his house and he made them a feast and baked unleavened bread and they ate. And, and you might be saying,

well, Genesis 18, that was two weeks ago. I don't remember, but he made them a feast. There's no wife involved in helping prepare. And by the end of the story, things aren't going to go well for her. There's obviously some division within the house. Okay. So she doesn't get in on the hospitality act. Lot does this alone. He bakes them the unleavened bread and it's unleavened, which means it had to be done really, really quickly or lots are really bad cook. I don't know which it is, but he doesn't get, he doesn't have time for it to rise. And so this might even be foreshadowing the Passover that we're going to see in the book of Exodus, where they eat unleavened bread because they have to hurry in the middle of the night because God is judging Egypt. Here God is judging Sodom. So they got to leave really, really quickly or something like that is foreshadowing that. But nevertheless, you can see

something's wrong with Lot's house. It doesn't have the friendliness. It doesn't have the joy. It doesn't have the, it doesn't have all of the exuberance and festivity of Abraham's house. What's the difference between the two? Abraham's in his tent next to some oaks foreshade. He's living in a place that's not all that hospitable, but he's hospitable. And Lot is living in a rich place full of all kinds of furnishings. He has an abundance of food. He's living the urban life and the house is like, the house is like a cemetery. This choice of Lot apparently has a lot to do with it, a lot to do with it. That was so dumb. But it was not purposeful. Oh, Lord, I can't wait to get to heaven. I don't have to make stupid jokes anymore. All right. But before they lay down, they're going to lay down and they're going to sleep, the angels that is, the men of the city, the men of

Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man. Look at that. Look at that. Look at how many qualifiers we have. Before they lay down, the men of the city, that should be enough, right? But the, but the author doesn't want that to be all that said, wants to stress something. Because sometimes you can say the men of the city, and you mean like 15 guys, maybe 15 representatives. But he wants to say more than that. The men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, not done, all the people to the last man. Hey, so there was nobody, no male over the past puberty, that's excluded from this. What happens now? They surrounded the house. And they called to lot. Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them. Okay, I've, I've, I've known the story as long as I've, I've known anything it seems like.

So I don't remember a time when I don't know the story, but I don't think I've ever quite visualized it like I did this week. Here's what I, here's what happened when I visualized this scene right here. I think you have to imagine, imagine a city that is in riot conditions. Smell of burning, tires, things set on fire, windows breaking. Of course, they don't have glass back then, but just imagine along with me a riot in our times. Police sirens going off. You can hear explosions off in the distance. And you can hear people marching down streets, some of them carrying placards, but most just shaking their fists and angry and people have weapons. And they're chanting, bring them out to us. That's the kind of thing that's happening around Lott's house. And it's all the men of the city from 13 years old to 99. Emptied out the whole city of all of these, all of these men, there must have been

some kind of network in the city knocking on doors. Hey, two guys came through the city gates a little while ago. They're at Lott's house knocking on doors all over the place. And then all kinds of mayhem follows them and they surround this house. They have their weapons, no doubt. They're shaking their fists. They're raising their voices. They're probably chanting. They're probably half of them drunk. And where are the men? Where are the men? Where are the men? Bring them out. And then the storyteller slips into euphemistic mode, uses a euphemism, doesn't want to say that we may rape them or have sex with them, but that we may know them. That's the Hebrew sensibilities. They typically try not to say the outright thing. They usually use some kind of euphemism. And this is what we get here. Bring them out that we may know them. So lot. There are a lot of customs that are enforced when somebody's under your house, they're

under your protection, and you are not to let them be harmed. They're your responsibility now. The divine world is watching you, what you do. So all kinds of stories in the ancient world around hosts who failed to live up to their responsibilities and what happened to them afterwards. And lot is about to have of just about the worst thing, maybe the worst thing that could happen to you as a host and to your guests, they're going to not just be murdered more than likely by the end of the night, but they're going to be raped first. This would be an extreme, extreme act of cowardice. If you didn't put yourself in harm's way to stop that from happening. So lot does what he should do, at least here. He went out to the men at the entrance and shut the door after him, which means he left himself no escape. So he barricades himself and surrenders his life essentially right here to them,

probably in hopes that while you elected me as an official, I sit at the city gate and help with the judgments around here, and maybe I'll be able to appeal to your better angels, the better angels of your nature. But in the last resort, he's going to stand between this mob and the two guests that he's hosting. He said, I beg you, my brothers, look at that appeal to familiarity. Do not act so wickedly. And then here's the, here's the, maybe the ugliest part of the story, not maybe it is definitely the ugliest part of the story. He goes from angel to devil in one sentence. Behold, I have two daughters who have not known any man. Okay, so they don't, the two girls don't have husbands yet, but we find out they have fiancés. And he's offering his two virgin daughters to them. I don't know if you can make this any worse than it already sounds. And I don't think I'm

going too far to say that lot probably didn't expect to have his daughters back. Alive. A very similar event happens in the book of Judges, and the woman that is, that goes out is not, she doesn't make it through the night. And probably something like that is happening here. Maybe, maybe lot, maybe lot thought they won't go for this. They'll be appeased and leave us alone. They'll see that, they'll see that, they'll see the terror on my face and they'll just go away. I don't know, that's probably giving him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know, but even saying that, making that a possibility, I don't care what era we're in. This is wrong. This is, this is, there's the 21st century perspective is the same as 4,000 years ago. Moses having right written in the book of Genesis would have expected his readers to be horrified by this offer that lot has made. He goes on to say, let me bring

them out to you and do to them as you please. Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof. And once again, he's appealing to that custom of making sure, and it's a way of showing that you have a fear, a healthy fear of, of the divine by not, not allowing anything to happen to your guests. However, I think you have a, not, I think, I know you have a greater obligation to your family, especially your daughters, and you have to two strangers, but it's an awful position to be put in. But they said, see, I think a lot knew them. He understood something about them, that this was not going to be what they wanted. They said, stand back. They said, this fellow came to sojourn. That means he's an immigrant, and he's become the judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them. And then they came after lot. They pressed hard

against the man and drew near. He's backing up, backing up, backing up again. He has no escape. He's surrounded and behind him is a closed door that he himself barred shut. He's about to die. This is about, this is Lot's last breath. But the men, that is the men inside the house, the two angels, reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them and shut the door. Very similar action to what sort of happened to Noah when, when, when the judgment is about to come there, they're, they're brought inside the Ark and God shuts the door. And the angels struck with blindness, the men who were at the entrance of the house, both small and great, so that they wore themselves out groping for the door, you would think if you're, you're suddenly blind, you'd stop. But not these men. They wore themselves out groping for the door. So I think what you're supposed to imagine here is you've got

a situation where a mob has worked themselves up into a frenzy, probably alcohol, drug, fueled some kind of substance. But whatever the case, once the mob mentality takes place, you want to see that the mob wants to see destruction before it's all said and done. And so they ignore the blindness and start groping for the door. All right, this story of Sodom becomes an archetypal story. And what I mean by archetypal is a story that becomes a model story from which knowledge and information and wisdom can be transmitted to future generations. Okay, other archetypal stories. So you get an idea of what I mean by archetypal story, story of Genesis chapter three, the fall, Adam and Eve in the garden, the serpent, and the forbidden fruit. That's an archetypal story. And all you have to do is say Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve, and everybody knows what that story is all about, even to the most secular person, they know something about

that story. All you have to do again is say Adam and Eve, and all of the details of the story come packaged with those three words, Adam and Eve. That's when you know you're dealing with an archetypal story. It's a model story that carries with it wisdom from the former ages. The story of the flood, all you have to do is say, it's three chapters of the Bible, Genesis seven, eight and nine. All you have to do though is say Noah's Ark. And then you've got the whole story right there, you know, animals saved 40 days of flooding, all kinds of things. Outside the Bible, the story of Prometheus probably doesn't resonate with everybody, but once upon a time it did. Prometheus, I don't have time to go into it, but it's one of the gods who stole fire from the sun and gave it to man and taught them how to use fire, and that made them more advanced than all the

rest of the creatures on earth. So it explains the difference between man and beast. Prometheus stole fire from the sun. And then Prometheus was punished for it for an eternity. Okay, that was an ancient Greek story. So you would call something a story Promethean, if say a scientist uncovers knowledge that ends up being destructive to the human race. The story of Frankenstein is a Promethean story. You have taken knowledge that you shouldn't have about creation and tried to create your own man, and then he ends up destroying you. That's a Promethean story. The story of Rip Van Winkle is an archetypal story, a story of a man that goes to sleep for almost 20 or 40 years. I can't remember which it is. And then he wakes up and it's a whole new world. Alibaba and the 40 thieves, that's a big long story. Thousand and one nights, it's a huge story. But all you have to do is talk about the genie's

lamp. And you know what that story is all about. It's about rubbing the lamp and making three wishes, treating some powerful something as a way of getting your wishes to come true. Archetypal story. The story of the prodigal son in the Bible is from the prison to the pulpit sort of thing. You're down and out. You hit bottom, rock bottom, and then you turned it around and God saved you. And now you're spreading the gospel. That's a big old long story. It's been told 10 million times. It started with the story of the prodigal son that Jesus told. It's an archetypal story. Couple more. Cinderella. All I have to do is say a Cinderella. And you already have the rags to riches story. It's an archetypal story. Sleeping beauty. Someone who's awakened and transformed by Prince Charming. A beauty and a beast. A kind of love that sees beyond appearances. And you can get a collection of these archetypal stories with a brief

description of them just like I've done. And you can have the plot of every single story there is on earth ever. Okay. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah archetypal story. It becomes a dire warning throughout the Bible. Anytime the biblical writer wants to speak of the worst kind of city and the worst kind of sin, the greatest level of depravity and perversion, all the writer simply has to say is Sodom and Gomorrah. It's a shorthand reference to the sin of complete societal depravity, debauchery. And more specifically, it becomes associated with more specifically homosexual acts. Okay. The very word Sodomy today refers back to this archetypal story. Sodom became the ultimate standard of God's judgment for wickedness. The biblical writers mentioned Sodom later on. And they say things like, if you continue to live in this way, Israel, I will do to you what I did to Sodom. And this gives the reader an understanding of how devastating God's judgment upon the world can

be. Peter puts it this way in 2 Peter 2 verse 6. And God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes and condemned them with an overthrow what? Making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. Okay. So Sodom and Gomorrah becomes an example of God's wrath poured out upon mankind for their sin. I took all the courses through seminary. I heard every argument there is. I've read all the articles on the subject and reviewed all the important books on the subject. And I still, today, even outside of seminary, I come across the occasional plea for the church to reassess its position on the subject of homosexuality, for instance. And right now the Roman Catholic Church is going through this. It seems to keep on coming up again and again and again. And there's great hope from the secular world that the Roman Catholic Church will cave on this subject. The previous Pope, Pope Francis, seemed to have

made some concessions, although his supporters say that he wasn't giving any concessions. But maybe that's a sympathetic reading. I don't know. Whatever the case, the Roman Catholic Church is being, once again, pressed on this subject. Accept this as normative in the church. Accept the idea that there's such a thing as a Christian homosexual. All right. And so it remains to be seen what the Roman Catholic Church will do, but it's coming to every denomination. I don't mean the caving. I mean the question. And I've read all of the pleas for this to become normative. And sometimes that plea takes the form of a so-called fresh look at the scriptural texts that condemn homosexuality. And whenever I read one of these articles or hear one of these advocates, the writer usually advocates for, this is a normative lifestyle. They say that there are homosexuals who are faithful, they believe in the creed, they believe in the Bible, and they're devout Christians. And the writer

will usually go to Genesis 19 and then explain that the text isn't condemning homosexuality, but is instead condemning the city of Sodom's mistreatment of foreigners and the lack of hospitality. They then tend to cite Ezekiel the prophet, who wrote about a thousand years later, and he referenced in one place in chapter 16, the city of Sodom. And Ezekiel says that the chief iniquity of Sodom was pride, abundance of bread, and idleness. And once they've quoted Ezekiel, then they want or try to make the case that the sin of Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality, but a failure of hospitality. So the whole basis for the what appears to be scriptures attitude towards homosexuality is groundless, because Genesis 19 isn't even condemning that, it's condemning the inhospitality. The trouble with this theory is it's only one of several later biblical texts that make a reference to Sodom and associate Sodom with homosexuality, and I'll get to these in just a moment. But even

in this text in Ezekiel, the Ezekiel text is hostile to the whole hospitality interpretation. The whole prophecy is about the sexual sins that Israel had begun to indulge in and excuse. And the reference to Sodom's iniquity of idleness is a clear reference back to the men of Sodom hanging around after sundown with seemingly nothing better to do than get all the men together to go and rape foreigners in the middle of the night. In Deuteronomy chapters 29 and chapter 32, Moses warns Israel that if they fail to keep God's law, God will destroy them like he did Sodom. Jude 7 says, second to last book of the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Take a look if you put that up there on the screen again. Jude chapter 7, or Jude verse 7, there's only one chapter in Jude. Okay,

read that again. Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, they serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Okay, so there's a very clear equation there in the text that equates the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah with the sin of what the writer says is unnatural desire. Okay, so Christians and Jews before the Christians have not been imagining what the sin of Sodom is for the last 3,000 years. Sodom is referred to in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in Ezekiel, in Amos, in Matthew 5, in Luke 10, and in Revelation 11. That's from Genesis to Revelation, a consistent message. In each case, Sodom is equated with complete depravity and with God's wrathful response. There's just really no way around it. In the Bible, the Bible condemns homosexuality. Now, you could say, well, okay, I can see that, but maybe the Bible's wrong. That's a position you could take. I would not recommend

that. But it is, it is a position you could take. But what you should not do is say that the Bible says something that it plainly doesn't say, or that the Bible doesn't say something that it plainly does say. Okay, so you have to make your decision. Is the Bible is the current culture, the current climate going to be that which sets the standard of morality? Okay, so you've got to make that decision. Hall in 1 Timothy 1 verse 10 says, the law is for the ungodly and sinners. Let's put it up there again, 1 Timothy 1 and 10. The law is for the ungodly and sinners. For the unholy and profane, I'm sorry, I quoted the verse before it too. For those who strike their fathers and mothers, that's parasite, somebody who, or patricide who kills his father or matricide who kills his mother. For murderers, verse 10, finally, the sexually immoral men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else

is contrary to sound doctrine. So if you dishonor your father or mother, if you're a murderer, if you're sexually immoral, which would mean you commit some form of fornication, homosexuality, if you enslave people, if you're an enslaver, if you're a liar, if you're a perjurer, and if you go against what is sound doctrine, what is taught from Genesis to Revelation, 1 Timothy 1, 10 puts everybody in that same basket right there. In Romans 1, verse 26, for their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 1 Corinthians 6 and 9, I just want to make sure that you don't say the Bible's not clear in what it has to say on this subject. 1 Corinthians 6 and 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous

will not inherit the kingdom of God, don't be deceived, neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Okay, so once again, the Bible is putting, a biblical writer is putting in the same basket as all of these other sins, the practice of homosexuality. Some do try to put a sophisticated spin on it, but it's just too plainly there in Scripture, and every attempt to explain it away only betrays the Advocate's overwhelming desire to make homosexuality compatible with Christianity. The contemporary Christian who adheres to the teachings of Scripture is often accused of being unloving and even hateful. And I'm sure there are folks who take these texts as permission to hate people, especially people they don't already like, they already don't like. So these texts do not give us permission to ever hate the person. We're never allowed to hate the person.

We can hate that which harms the person, but not the person. These scriptures don't give permission to hate. But in spite of that, you can still be accused of being hateful. This could be considered hate speech. But if you really want to understand the Bible honoring and God honoring Christian and step back from the caricatures our culture draws of us, you'll see a very different picture. Knowing what we know about God and the church's historic attitude towards homosexuality, knowing that God views it as a perversion of his created design, knowing what happened to Sodom, knowing that the sins of Sodom provoked in God so much wrath that Sodom became a shorthand way of referencing the greatest demonstration of God's judgment seen in the world, knowing all of this, who's the one who really hates the homosexual, the one who warns against homosexuality and stands against it and pleads against it, or the one who condones homosexuality and welcomes it. I think the latter

is the unloving one. And you might ask, well, what's the big deal about all of this? This is an illustration. And I apologize in advance. It just came to my mind. So I haven't test driven it. And it could just flop. My wife's drawing in a big breath right now. Lord help him. Here's my illustration. One of the schools that I teach for, it's called Urchin College or Urchin University. And Urchin is a really important name in Pentecostal denominational tradition. Nathaniel Urchin, the Urchins were early Pentecostal pioneers. And somewhere along the way, somebody made a great big from shoulder up a bust of Nathaniel Urchin's face, his head, made it out of marble. And it was supposed to be put somewhere nice. I would imagine probably in a museum for those who care about Pentecostal history. But one of my colleagues was downstairs in one of the university buildings, going through storage, looking for some items. And she saw this bust of Nathaniel

Urchin, who was again, once one of the most hallowed names in Pentecost. That bust was sitting on the floor, tipped over a little bit and holding a door open, a closet door. Now, you know, big deal. But imagine that was your mom or dad. And here's this sculpture of them just sitting there being used all of these years to prop open a door. She brings that up from time to time to remind herself that you can try to be really important in this world and try to be remembered forever. But it's a feudal attempt. That's not the way the world works. And that's her way of thinking about it. But I'm thinking about it right now for a different reason. I'm thinking that bust was made in love for a certain purpose. That was to be a reminder for all times for futurity to remember this person and give that person honor for all the sacrifices they made in life. Really good they

did. But here it's being used as a door prop. You really couldn't get much more disrespectful than that. Okay, so here's here's here's here's where I'm drawing the line between these two things. God makes man and woman. His design was for that relationship to be the one that produces offspring. That is heaven blessed relationship covenant covenant. What homosexuality does is it it not merely sets aside the original design and says well I've got another design. And it seems like in the Bible and from the apostles point of view and the prophets point of what it actually does is it disrespects the original design. It doesn't merely set it aside. It actually disrespects it. And this seems to have been the source of God's anger against Sodom. Now I used the term homosexual a moment ago in spite of trying to be careful and speak only of homosexuality. The reason is that there really isn't such a thing as a homosexual. There are only

people who commit the act of homosexuality. It's what the person does, not who the person is. The one who commits homosexual acts is acting upon the same sin nature that leads some men to be adulterers, some to be frauds, others to be envious. But no one has to remain in such a lifestyle. You're not bound to it for the rest of your life. You find your identity in the new birth and being born again and being set free. In the scripture I quoted a moment ago Paul said and you heard this you heard as I read it. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who practice homosexuality will inherit the kingdom of God but listen to the rest of it. And such were some of you. These are the Christians of the Bible. Such were some of you. But you were washed, Paul

said. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. Oh, it is not a lifetime sentence. It is something that God rejoices to cleanse, to make right. And so we have to make a decision. You have to make a decision as a church. You make a decision. Are we going to go with what the Bible teaches? Or are we going to go with what our culture teaches? Right? But culture comes and goes over time. The Bible stays the same. So I'm going to go with the eternal perspective rather than the temporary perspective and let God work everything out. Teaching at Urchin University, I got the opportunity to have conversations. Kids are constantly dealing with this. They have more questions than they've ever had. There's more confusion than there's ever been about identity, about gender. It's never been so confusing for kids. You're asked as a Christian to pull off the what

is in the natural man an impossible task of believing in the Bible alone, oftentimes alone. You don't have cultural support for it. You're not going to get any accolades for it. You're going to sometimes be called names for it. Then on the other side of it, you have to resist the temptation to become a hateful person, to become an ugly person. Know those churches that go out there and they whisper a baptism and go out there and they hold up signs that say homos are going to hell and even more wicked signs than that. You can't become that. That's just as wicked. It's horrible. It's horrifying. Christ died for sinners. So you pull off this very difficult balancing act, but you can, through the Holy Ghost, to be a very loving person. But also, you're a Bible-believing person. At the same time, can you do that? I think you can. Amen. Well, why don't we stand and pray?