Genesis 19
¹   And there came two angels to Sodom at even; 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;
²   And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry 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.
³   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.
⁴   But before they lay 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:
⁵   And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.
⁶   And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him,
⁷   And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly.
⁸   Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.
⁹   And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to 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.
¹⁰   But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.
¹¹   And they smote 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.
¹²   And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place:
¹³   For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.
¹⁴   And Lot went out, and spake unto his sons in law, which married his daughters, and said, Up, get you out of this place; for the LORD will destroy this city. But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.
¹⁵   And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened Lot, saying, Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters, which are here; lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.
¹⁶   And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city.
¹⁷   And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad, that he said, Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.
¹⁸   And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so, my LORD:
¹⁹   Behold now, thy servant hath found grace in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy mercy, which thou hast shewed unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountain, lest some evil take me, and I die:
²⁰   Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live.
²¹   And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow this city, for the which thou hast spoken.
²²   Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar.
²³   The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar.
²⁴   Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven;
²⁵   And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
²⁶   But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
²⁷   And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the LORD:
²⁸   And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
²⁹   And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in the which Lot dwelt.
³⁰   And Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the mountain, and his two daughters with him; for he feared to dwell in Zoar: and he dwelt in a cave, he and his two daughters.

Before we get into the lesson this evening, let me say that I haven’t come to preach a lesson on homosexuality.  The scriptures on the subject are clear. 

Leviticus 18
²²   Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.

The principle is repeated in the New Testament in Romans 1:26-27:

Romans 1
²⁶   For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
²⁷   And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Make no mistake.  God does not look at homosexuality as an “alternate lifestyle”.  It is an abandonment of the natural order that God set up.  It is sin.  Like any sin, the wages thereof is death.  We are not to tolerate the sin of homosexuality.  The homosexual needs to repent of that sin, in order to have a right relationship with God.  But lets not be two-faced about the situation.  The fornicator, and the adulterer need to repent as well.  We are not to tolerate those sins either.

From our text, we find that the men of Sodom were more depraved than the average homosexual.  These were homosexual rapists.  Once a moral decline has begun within a nation, it is difficult to stop the progress.  This is simply another bible lesson where we see this principle at work.  It begins with tolerance, works its way to acceptance, and finally bears fruit by being embraced by the entire nation.

This being said, let's explore how Lot ended up in Sodom in the first place.  In Genesis chapter 13, we find Abraham, and his nephew Lot being prospered to such a degree that the land can no longer support the flocks and herds of both.  They agree to separate.  Abraham allows Lot to choose which land he will settle.  Abraham will go the opposite way.  Genesis 13: 10-13 records:

Genesis 13
¹⁰   And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar.
¹¹   Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other.
¹²   Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.
¹³   But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

Sodom looked like a good place to go.  But Sodom already had a bad reputation as a wicked place.  In spite of that, because of the “well watered plain” Lot chooses to live there.  That brings us to our first lesson this evening.

It is difficult to have close association with the wicked, and not form some attachment.  It is difficult to live among the wicked and not have some rub off.  It has always bothered me that Lot offers his virgin daughters to these men at his doors.  I can’t believe that he thought that this would be ok with God.  Regardless of the culture of the day, I cannot imagine that this activity would ever be approved of God.  Often when we find ourselves surrounded by so much evil, we will compromise with the lesser of evils.  Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 15
³³   Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.

Wickedness rubs off!  If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas!  Paul also tells us in 2 Corinthians 6:14-17:

2 Corinthians 6
¹⁴   Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
¹⁵   And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
¹⁶   And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
¹⁷   Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

This applies to marriage, we should not marry outside of the faith.  But this also applies to the church.  We truly cannot have interfaith acceptance.  There is one church.  It belongs to Christ.  It follows the Scriptures only.  It is distinctive.  We must come out and be separate. 

When the righteous have not come out from the wicked, there is danger that they will be swallowed up in that wickedness.  When that danger is at its peak God has a history of intervening.  Let’s look at 2 Peter 2: 5-9:

2 Peter 2
⁵   And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
⁶   And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
⁷   And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
⁸   (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
⁹   The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

I have a note on the chalkboard in my office.  “Did God bring the flood to destroy the world, or to save Noah?”  Somebody has written to destroy the wicked.  This is true, but it was just as much to save Noah.  Noah was the last righteous head of household in a wicked world.  God preserved righteousness, and mankind through Noah.

Lot knew that he was living a bad place.  Yet in spite of that it became home.  I believe as we look at the first three verses of our text, we see Lot persuading the angels to avoid sleeping in the square.  It was not a safe place to sleep.  He also is encouraging them to leave early in the morning.  I feel a sense of embarrassment and shame on Lot’s part, for the community in which he lives.  Peter said that he was vexed in his soul.  Yet when we get to verse 17 we find the angels physically grabbing Lot by the hand to lead him out of the city.  The more time we spend around sin, the more comfortable we can become with it.  It isn’t easy to leave Sodom behind.

The next lesson we learn from our text is that we need to leave and not look back.  Look what happened to Lot’s wife.  As bad as Sodom was, it was home.  She just wanted one more look, and paid a price.  As sinful as our lives were before we came to Christ, we were called to leave those lives behind and not look back.  If we look back, we will pay the price.  Jesus said:

Luke 9
⁶²   And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

That old life can seem like home, as much as Sodom did to Lot’s wife.  When we were baptized, the old man died.  We must be careful not to resuscitate him.  We must not look back.

Next, we must move forward.  Lot was not allowed to stop until he reached safety.  Paul writes:

Colossians 3
²   Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

And again:

Philippians 3
¹¹   If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
¹²   Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
¹³   Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
¹⁴   I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Simply, we have to keep our sights set on heaven if we are to get there.  We need to continue working for the cause of Christ as long as he gives us breath.  We have not reached safety, or cannot consider that we have, until we reach heaven.  We must move ever forward.

Finally let’s notice verse 30 of our text.  Lot feared to stay in Zoar. Remember, that Zoar was to be destroyed right along with Sodom.  The whole region was wicked and slated for destruction.  I guess the lesson here is that, when we recognize sin for what it can do, we’ll do all that we can to avoid it.  Jude 7 says that our text was given as an example of what sin gets us.

Jude 1
⁷   Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.