Now we all know why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. We read about it in Jude where Jude talks about the fact that they’ve given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh and they’re set for forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. And Peter talks about it here, turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly. And we then get this picture of Sodom and Gomorrah as this horribly sensualistic, lustful, hedonistic, immoral place. It was, that is part of the reason why they were judged, but that’s not the only reason.

In the book of Ezekiel, God tells us why he judged Sodom and Gomorrah. And it’s not only for the reasons that Jude and Peter list. It’s not just for the big sins that none of us would ever be thought guilty of. There are people who murder and there are people who are sexually immoral and there are people who do all of these other things. And we like to look at it in a hierarchy and we think as long as we’re not as bad as that, well you know what, all you have to be as bad is as bad as you and you’re guilty and going to hell if you don’t repent.

It’s that simple. But Ezekiel tells us why Sodom was destroyed. Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom in Ezekiel 16 verses 49 and 50. “49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had lofty pride, abundant food, and quiet ease, but she did not strengthen the hand of the afflicted and needy. 50 Then they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. So I removed them when I saw it.” Yes, there’s the abomination, but do you see what’s on the same plane? Pride, fullness of food, they had plenty to eat, what’s the sin there? A complacent, obese, gluttony – serving self. I have everything I want, I have everything I need, and an abundance of idleness in their affluence.

They sound a lot like Laodicea, don’t they? They don’t even know what they need. They are complacent. They are idle. They are proud. Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy. There was no care for those who needed to be cared for, and so Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. As they were, we see the second part of verse 9, God knows how to reserve the unjust under punishment for the Day of Judgment, to reserve them there, to chain them there, to bind them to this destiny.

They are guilty, and there is no escape. Judgment is sure. So, as he’s warning about false teachers, he gives this picture. Look at these times of judgment. And these times of judgment, the fall of the angels, the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah being turned into ashes, these aren’t as bad as it will be at the final day of judgment.

This is an example for those, he says, who decide to live ungodly lives, that this is the end that they will face. This is sure they will be judged. But the good news there is that God knows how to deliver the godly from temptation.

There is rescue for the righteous. In verse 5 he talks about Noah, “And did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” He saved Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives. He put them in the ark, He shut the door. He saved creation. He preserved Noah.

In verses 7 and 8, he talks about Lot living in Sodom and Gomorrah, “And if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men 8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds).”

Seeing what went on in the world tortured him. Living in that place, I really do think we can relate. The difference being at times when we see Noah and Lot and we see what they did and how they lived. When they see that Lot here, literally, his soul was tormented, was tortured by their lawless deeds. The difficulty with the church today, I think, is that we’re not all that tortured about the deeds of the lost. We’re not all that tormented. We don’t stand out enough to be persecuted. Because we would prefer to go with the flow, to keep it under the radar, to be a silent, secret Christian.

But saving faith, faith in Christ, is the most public thing that there is about you. Because you are owned by a master who bought you with his blood. There is a point that we stand out from the world. The world should be shocked that we don’t run with them in this flood of dissipation.

Back in 1 Peter chapter 4, Peter said, “Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose—because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin— so as to no longer live the rest of the time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.” He goes on, he says, “For the time already past is sufficient for you to have worked out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, maligning you, but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.”

Lot and Noah stood out. They were tormented by the condition of society around them. They preached against it, and Noah prepared and built an ark, and Lot prepared by getting his family out and by fleeing. They were peculiar people. It’s the term in Titus 2. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” I really like the fact that the King James Version uses the word “peculiar” instead of special people. Because look at us. We are. He has saved and He’s keeping for Himself a peculiar people.

We have been called out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his glorious love. We have been called out. We are new creatures. We’ve been born again. We’ve been raised from the dead. We’ve been freed from sin and death and the grave. We are different than we were. We have put off the old man and put on the new. And that should be enough in itself to make us stand out from the world. We don’t run with them in the same flood of dissipation and sin or at least we shouldn’t.

But there’s the difference. Noah and Lot stood out in these societies as the remnant, as the few, as the righteous, those who found grace. Today, it is very difficult to find Christians and churches that stand out from the world. We think that the more we are like the world, the more we will attract them. Listen, what attracts the world is the work of the Spirit through the word preached. It is not us being like the world that convinces the world that they need to be like us. The world wants us to be like them. Do you know why the world wants us to be like them? Because then there is no conviction in our message or in the way that we live.

Our lives should stand as an open rebuke to the lost in the world. We’re called out from that. We are supposed to be different from that. But we drink too deeply from that to let go. We love it too much. John said, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.”

These things were supposed to hate. These things were supposed to shun. These things were supposed to despise. But look, Tozer said it, Ravenhill said it, others have said it. When you go and you look for the church today, you find it firmly rooted in the world. And when you look for the world, there it is sitting in the church. Worldliness, trying to mesh with society so as not to upset people. Listen, we have been given a message that is upsetting. God is holy, and we are not, and He will judge the wicked. That should be an unsettling message. He’s already told us here judgment is sure and it’s true and it’s coming and there are those who have been restricted and bound and are being held over for the day of judgment.

We read it in 2 Peter 2:3, “Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” It is coming like a freight train down the track and there is nothing to stop it. God will judge the wicked. So we warn them. We preach to them. We stand out. We show them by living the truth. And when we do, just like Noah and just like Lot, we will be persecuted. We will pay a price. Sometimes that has already begun to happen in our nation but I’ll tell you, it’s not near the levels that it will be before it’s all over.

The more the church looks like Christ, the more the church will be hated and reviled by the world because the world hates Him with every fiber of their being. The only way they’ll accept Him is if you change something about who He is, if you lessen Him, if you humanize Him, if you just make Him a good guy, if you just make Him a grandfather in the skies who wants to bless you and give you everything that you want. They change and they twist the nature of God because God is holy, holy, holy and He will judge the ungodly. But this is the good news. Noah and Lot are an example to us that God will preserve the godly.

If, he tells us, God did not spare the angels who sinned but cast them down and delivered them into the chains of darkness reserved for judgment. If God did not spare the ancient world and if God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemning them to destruction, making them an example to those who would afterward live godly lives. And if God saved Noah, one of eight people, and spared righteous Lot, then this is why. what we know in verse 9, the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations.

Think about the temptations that faced Lot, not just the horrible abominations of immorality, but it’s easy to give in to pride, isn’t it? It’s easy to want to be full all the time. We’re proud and we’re content and we’re complacent and we think we’re satisfied, but the things we’re chasing don’t actually, lastingly satisfy us. But we look and we see what God is telling us. He will reserve the wicked for judgment, but he also knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation to preserve the righteous.

We see here the power of God as he rules and as he reigns. He is in control. And here’s the good news too. God is actively restraining evil. People talk about the problem of evil and the fact that evil exists. That’s no problem to God. God uses evil to accomplish His purposes. He permits it to accomplish His purposes. That’s how great and powerful God is. That we can give it our best shot to ruin it, and God will work good out of it.

How does He do that? What kind of power is that? That we can run off into sin and abomination, and God can work it for good. It doesn’t get much worse than a bunch of brothers conspiring against a younger brother and deciding to murder him and then listening to the wisdom of the older brother, saying, “Let’s not kill him, let’s just tell dad that he’s dead.” Sell him as a slave. This is the story of Joseph. And when they treated him that way, Joseph absolutely could have gone off and moped and cursed God and died in jail. What happened? Everywhere that he was, he was faithful to the Lord.

And when he had the showdown with his brothers, what did he tell them? What did he tell them? You meant it for evil. But there was a sovereign purpose behind it. God meant it. You see the will of God there? God did not originate or author their sin. They did that by their choices. But when they chose to do that, God had determined it would be to accomplish His purposes. How powerful is God? “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.”

How many people were saved? The line was preserved. The Messiah was born. You see, it wasn’t just about the famine. It was about preserving Israel. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. God does restrain evil.

Here is the truth about the doctrine of total depravity. We do not say by talking about the doctrine of total depravity that all men are as wicked as they could be. Praise God, most men and most women are not as evil as they could be because there is still some restraining work of the Holy Spirit on this earth. We have not been allowed to run as far into sin as we could, but we have run far enough into it not to want to come out of it until He comes and gets us, until He seeks and saves us, that which is lost.

To Be Continued…