Tag: outcry

36.u. “Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.”

 

 

 

Genesis 19:12  Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.” So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting. As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the LORD being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die. Behold, this city is near enough to flee to, and it is a little one. Let me escape there—is it not a little one?—and my life will be saved!” He said to him, “Behold, I grant you this favor also, that I will not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. Escape there quickly, for I can do nothing till you arrive there.” Therefore the name of the city was called Zoar. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.

The angels now take steps for the deliverance of Lot and his kindred before the destruction of the cities. All that are related to him are included in the offer of deliverance. There is a blessing in being connected with the righteous, if men will but avail themselves of it. (Barnes)

The sin of Sodom had now become manifest. The men, Lot’s guests, made themselves known to him as the messengers of judgment sent by Jehovah, and ordered him to remove any one that belonged to him out of the city. Lot’s son-in-laws who had received his summons in scorn, because in their carnal security they did not believe in any judgment of God. (Keil and Delitzsch )

For we will destroy this place,…. Or “we are destroying it” (p), are about to do it, and will quickly and immediately do it: because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; the cry of the sins of the inhabitants of it, which were many, and openly, and daringly committed, and reached to heaven, and called for immediate vengeance and punishment: and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it. (Gill)

Lot’s lingering and rescue by force. Second thoughts are not always best. When great resolves have to be made, and when a clear divine command has to be obeyed, the first thought is usually the nobler; and the second, which pulls it back, and damps its ardour, is usually of the earth, earthy. So was it with Lot. Overnight, in the excitement of the terrible scene enacted before his door, Lot had been not only resolved himself to flee, but his voice had urged his sons-in-law to escape from the doom which he then felt to be imminent. But with the cold grey light of morning his mood has changed. The ties which held him in Sodom reassert their power. Perhaps daylight made his fears seem less real. There was no sign in the chill Eastern twilight that this day was to be unlike the other days. So his heart, which is where his treasure is, makes his movements slow. What insanity his lingering must have seemed to the angels! I wonder if we, who cling so desperately to the world, and who are so slow to go where God would have us to be for our own safety, if thereby we shall lose anything of this world’s wealth, seem very much wiser to eyes made clear-sighted with the wisdom of heaven. This poor hesitating lingerer, too much at home in the city of destruction to get out of it even to save his life, has plenty of brothers to-day. Every man who lets the world hold him by the skirts when Christ is calling him to salvation, and every man who is reluctant to obey any clear call to sacrifice and separation from godless men, may see his own face in this glass, and perhaps get a glimpse of its ugliness. When a man who has been cleaving to this fleeting life of earthly good wakes up to believe his danger, he is ever apt to plunge into an abyss of terror, in which God’s commands seem impossible, and His will to save becomes dim. The world first lies to us by ‘You are quite safe where you are. Don’t be in a hurry to go.’ Then it lies, ‘You never can get away now.’ How many people awakened to see their danger are so absorbed by the sight that they cannot see the cross, or think they can never reach it? To Abraham, and through him to his descendants, and through them to us, it preaches a truth very unwelcome to many in this day: that there is in God that which constrains Him to hate, fight against, and punish, evil. The temper of this generation turns away from such thoughts, and, in the name of the truth that ‘God is love,’ would fain obliterate the truth that He does and will punish. But if the punitive element be suppressed, and that in God which makes it necessary ignored or weakened, the result will be a God who has not force enough to love, but only weakly to indulge. If He does not hate and punish, He does not pardon. For the sake of the love of God, we must hold firm by the belief in the judgments of God. The God who destroyed Sodom is not merely the God of an earlier antiquated creed. ‘Is He the God of the Jews only? Is He not also of the Gentiles? Yea, of the Gentiles also.’ (MacLaren)

Man will always find a way to reject or deny God’s coming judgment. His judgment against sin will come as sure as the sun rises and sets. Every hidden or secret thought will be called into judgment. Every act of defiance and disobedience will not go unnoticed or not judged. There is a judgment coming that will cast into eternal hell and torment forever and ever all those who have rejected and denied true and firm belief in and on and through Jesus Christ alone. How shallow are those whose commitment to serve, honor, obey, follow, worship, and glorify Jesus Christ, were it a spark it could not ignite the most flammable gas or liquid. These will be a calling out on the day of judgment, “Lord, Lord” and He will respond, depart from Me for I never knew you!”

2. The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people

Genesis 41:29  There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt,  but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt.

1 Samuel 5:6    The hand of the LORD was heavy against the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and afflicted them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territory.

Isaiah 24:20    The earth staggers like a drunken man; it sways like a hut; its transgression lies heavy upon it,

Exodus 9:3   behold, the hand of the LORD will fall with a very severe plague upon your livestock that are in the field, the horses, the donkeys, the camels, the herds, and the flocks.

Psalms 32:4    For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.

Acts 13:11    And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time.

Isaiah 5:7-30     For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting; and he looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, an outcry!  Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.  The LORD of hosts has sworn in my hearing: “Surely many houses shall be desolate, large and beautiful houses, without inhabitant.  For ten acres of vineyard shall yield but one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield but an ephah.”  Woe to those who rise early in the morning, that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them!  They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts, but they do not regard the deeds of the LORD, or see the work of his hands.  Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge; their honored men go hungry, and their multitude is parched with thirst.  Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened its mouth beyond measure, and the nobility of Jerusalem and her multitude will go down, her revelers and he who exults in her.  Man is humbled, and each one is brought low, and the eyes of the haughty are brought low.  But the LORD of hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.  Then shall the lambs graze as in their pasture, and nomads shall eat among the ruins of the rich.  Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes,  who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!”  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!  Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!  Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink,  who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!  Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.  Therefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against his people, and he stretched out his hand against them and struck them, and the mountains quaked; and their corpses were as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger has not turned away, and his hand is stretched out still.  He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come!  None is weary, none stumbles, none slumbers or sleeps, not a waistband is loose, not a sandal strap broken;  their arrows are sharp, all their bows bent, their horses’ hoofs seem like flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind.  Their roaring is like a lion, like young lions they roar; they growl and seize their prey; they carry it off, and none can rescue.  They will growl over it on that day, like the growling of the sea. And if one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress; and the light is darkened by its clouds.

Is their a living God, sovereign over all, who judges mankind and at times places His mighty hand heavily upon them?  Is there a living God that sees all thoughts and intents and actions of mankind?  Is there a living God that warns man?  Yes there is and it is not good to turn deaf ear to His warnings.  We easily claim His blessings and promises but rarely think of His warnings and discipline.  His warnings are out of love to keep us from doing harm to our soul and that which does not honor and glorify Him.  Pride, lust, greed and placing something other than God first in our life are all warned against.  When warnings are not taken to heart, or the heart and ears are hardened to not hear His warnings, and repentance and returning to Him is desired, the hand of God will be upon us.

This side of eternity it is a good thing to have the hand of God upon us and lovingly trying to turn us away from our wrong paths in life.  It is a very sad and dreadful day when we pass from this life into eternity without taking heed to His warnings.

Tomorrow I will start to post excerpts from a sermon Johnathan Edwards gave  July 8, 1741; “In the hands of an angry God”

And they did not believe them.

Genesis 19:12  Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place.  For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the LORD, and the LORD has sent us to destroy it.”  So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up! Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.

Numbers 16:26    And he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.”

Revelation 18:4-8     Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues;  for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.  Pay her back as she herself has paid back others, and repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.  As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, ‘I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.’  For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.”

2 Chronicles 36:16    But they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy.

Proverbs 29:1    He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck, will suddenly be broken beyond healing.

Isaiah 28:22     Now therefore do not scoff, lest your bonds be made strong; for I have heard a decree of destruction from the Lord GOD

Jeremiah 5:12-14    They have spoken falsely of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.  The prophets will become wind; the word is not in them. Thus shall it be done to them!’”  Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of hosts: “Because you have spoken this word, behold, I am making my words in your mouth a fire, and this people wood, and the fire shall consume them.

Luke 17:28-30     Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot—they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building,  but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—  so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.

Luke 24:11    but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

1 Thessalonians 5:3    While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them

Disbelief has a way of capturing the hearts and minds of many.  What starts out as disbelief soon turns to scoffing and trying to prove all things of God false.  No urgent warning will be listened too.  No pleas for turning to God will be acted upon.  No promise of God believed.  It is sad to think of and yet we must be mindful of the lies and deceptions of the father of all lies who whittles away truth one small lie or seed of doubt at a time.

Matthew Henry stated it like this: An unbelieving heart was at the bottom of all this. All disobedience to God’s laws, and distrust of his power and goodness, flow from disbelief of his word, as all true obedience springs from faith. It is profitable for us to divide our past lives into distinct periods; to give thanks to God for the mercies we have received in each, to confess and seek the forgiveness of all the sins we can remember; and thus to renew our acceptance of God’s salvation, and our surrender of ourselves to his service. Our own plans seldom avail to good purpose; while courage in the exercise of faith, and in the path of duty, enables the believer to follow the Lord fully, to disregard all that opposes, to triumph over all opposition, and to take firm hold upon the promised blessings.

A disbelieving heart and mind  to God’s judgment, anger and wrath will  certainly hardened their heart to God’s grace, mercy and love.  Jesus gave the example of a rich man and a poor beggar named Lazarus.

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

How are we to see acts of God move mountains, earth shake, healing,  blessings, protection, courage, and grace, mercy and love without belief?  It is hard to have belief and faith in God unless time is spent with Him and His word feeding our heart, mind, and soul.  When the world is on a wide and easy path to judgment and hell it is more important than ever to be diligent in prayer, reading His word, growing in understanding, knowledge and faith, and proclaiming salvation and forgiveness of sin.

Pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease

“Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.”

Genenis 13:1  So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.  Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.  And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,  to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the LORD.  And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents,  so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together,  and there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. At that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites were dwelling in the land.  Then Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are kinsmen.  Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.”  And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)  So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.  Abram settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom.  Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the LORD.

Genesis 18:20    Then the LORD said, “Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave,

  Isaiah 1:9     If the LORD of hosts had not left us a few survivors, we should have been like Sodom, and become like Gomorrah.

  Isaiah 3:9    For the look on their faces bears witness against them; they proclaim their sin like Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to them! For they have brought evil on themselves.

Ezekiel 16:46-50    And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters.  Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways.  As I live, declares the Lord GOD, your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done.  Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.  They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it.

Matthew 11:23-24   And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.  But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

2 Peter 2:6-8    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);

The path Lot chose was place he likened to “the garden of the LORD” and why not, well watered and established.  Abraham chose whatever Lot did not.  I imagine, if we are given a choice, we will pick the path that seems more pleasing.

Either path is right but what lies ahead can be a bit deceiving.  Looks, as they say, are deceiving.  Who would think a land of prosperity, abundance of food, and prosperous ease would lead to anyone having pride rather than thankfulness.

I wonder how much our culture resembles the life styles, thoughts, actions of Sodom.  I question the liberal application of morals and adoption of them by many –  How close are we to that of Sodom?  Are we half way there or surpassing?

Oh, God heal our nation, draw us back to where You and Your word are guiding and directing our thoughts.  Place barriers in our paths that might otherwise lead us away from thinking and desiring You.  Light a fire in our soul and fill us with your Spirit, anew.  Open our eyes and ears to see and hear what is right and acceptable in Your sight.  Soften our heart to those in need, fill us with courage to stand up for that which is right in Your eyes.  Teach us to be humble, thankful, generous, king and loving so that our lives honor and glorify You alone.

Reread this last paragraph with “Me” instead of our or us.