Part 1 – Flexibility Training – Reading
Remember that story a few chapters earlier where Lot made the choice to live in the region of Sodom because he saw the land was good for grazing? That choice lead into Lot and his family and possessions being taken captive. Fortunately, 80-something-year-old Abraham rode off like Indiana Jones, full of courage, smarts, and quick moves. He saved Lot and so many others from the marauders who had conquered and captured them.
Many years later, Lot has now moved his family into the city. Only now the corruption of Sodom had reached its full depth of depravity and, once again, threatened the safety of Lot and his family. And, once again, Abraham once again came to the support of Lot and his family and any other righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah.
As you read Genesis 18:22 through the end of chapter 19, read it using your imagination. Imagine that Abraham is pleading to God for your own country. That there you are, like Lot, in the midst of evil, murder, and depravity but there is nothing you can do to change things. Suddenly two angels show up and tell you to leave, to flee to safety. Would you go immediately? Would you be like Lot and need to be dragged out by the hand? Would you be like Lot’s wife and look back at all the things you love in that wicked city of yours?
ESV – Genesis 18 – BibleHub
NLT – Genesis 18 – BibleHub
In chapter 17 we read how Abraham had asked God if Ishmael couldn’t be the son of the promise. It was a respectful question that God responded to. In today’s reading we see how Abraham asked for a favor on behalf of his neighbor city and God said yes; so he respectfully asked for a better favor and God said yes; so he asked for an ever better favor, FOUR MORE TIMES! And God said yes each time. In each of these times, Abraham was respectful, admitting that he is the creation and God is above all.
God ultimately told Abraham that He would spare the cities if just ten righteous could be found within them. In these days of increasing violence, terrorism, lack of respect for our police officers and military, lack of trust in our elected officials, I find it comforting that God would spare such infamously wicked cities for the sake of just ten righteous people. Perhaps He will do the same for us.
PART 2 – Strength Training – Memory & Thinking
Don’t forget to go back and review the first week of verses you learned. Then add this one to the list.
Deuteronomy 32:31-33 For their rock is not as our Rock; our enemies are by themselves.
For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison; their clusters are bitter; their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps.
Genesis 18:14 “Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Colossians 2:11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.
Genesis 15:6 And [Abraham] believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Romans 4:13 Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith.
Just the three words “Sodom and Gomorrah” have come to tell a tale of wickedness and God’s justice in bringing about their destruction. Throughout the Bible, they continue to be referenced. Read through these verses below and notice the legacy these towns left behind them.
2 Peter 2:6-10 …if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones…
Matthew 10:14-15 [Jesus on sending out His disciples to teach] And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.
Amos 4:10-11 “I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
I killed your young men with the sword,
and carried away your horses,
and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.
“I overthrew some of you,
as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
and you were as a brand plucked out of the burning;
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.
Jude 1:5-7 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as 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.
Ezekiel 16:56-58 Was not your sister Sodom a byword in your mouth in the day of your pride, before your wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become an object of reproach for the daughters of Syria and all those around her, and for the daughters of the Philistines, those all around who despise you. You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your abominations, declares the Lord.
Part 3 – Cardio Training – Prayer
An appropriate response to reading about God’s judgement on someone is to recognize that we are just as worthy of judgement and destruction. Our city is just as evil – filled with different sins perhaps, but just as worthy of punishment. Our nation is likewise deserving of God’s wrath. There is so much evil in the world. In the book of Daniel, it tells how that prophet confessed the sins of his nation to God. This prayer below, based on Daniel’s prayer in Daniel 9, is a good place for us to start praying for our own country:
“O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfill Your covenant and keep Your promises of unfailing love to those who love You and obey Your commands. But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against You and scorned Your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to your servants, who spoke on Your authority to our leaders and to all the people of the land. Lord, You are in the right; but as You see, our faces are covered with shame. This is true of all of us because we have sinned against you. Because of this, You have brought on us the disaster we earned. O Lord our God, You are right to do all of these things, for we did not obey You. But the Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him. O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive. O Lord, listen and act! We make this plea, not because we deserve help, but because of your mercy.”
Part 4 – Endurance Training
Standing firmly against evil takes courage and persistence. To pray for one’s country and its leaders takes persistence. Day in, day out, we must continue to share the Word of God and the hope we have in our rescue from God’s perfect judgement. May the Holy Spirit give you the strength to carry on and to persevere even in evil days.
An Extra Lap
An interesting side note about that story of Lot’s daughters. They grew up in a very perverse city and it shows. How would it affect you to have your father offered you to an angry crowd of men bend on sexual violence? It shows in the fact that they intentionally committed incest with their father in order to have children to carry on the name of their family. The people groups that came from these two (grand)sons were known as perverse and wicked. If anyone tells you the means justify the ends, think of the story of how Lot got (grand)sons.
And yet – God can change one’s legacy. Even if it became tainted somewhere back in the family, God can still bring about amazing transformation from its midst. You can skip ahead to the story of Ruth. She has her own book. It is the story of how God brought a good end to the story of Lot and his family in spite of how and where it began.
Faith Gym 