Devotional Materials. Week Commencing Sunday 13th March 2022.
Call to worship
‘Praise the Lord, O my soul; robed in majesty and splendour. Praise the Lord.’ Psalm 104
‘Who is like you- majestic in holiness.’ Exodus 15:11
God is holy which means He is separate from all other beings in His nature. He is purity, truth, righteousness, justice, goodness and every moral perfection.
Opening Hymn
‘Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty !’ MP 237 (Piano)
Reginald Heber
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrg7jQ5Ic8c
Opening Prayer
O Lord our God, enthroned on high, filling the whole earth with your glory; holy, holy, holy is your name. Our eyes have seen the King, the Lord almighty; but our lips are unclean. We cry to you in our sinfulness to take our guilt away.
Lord accept and make holy all that we are, all that we have and all that we offer you. Keep us firm in our faith and strong in your service. Create in us a new heart that we may respond to your great mercy. One God, our Saviour. Now and forever. Amen.
Hymns
‘Only by grace’ MP 914 (Piano)
Gerrit Gustafson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f3fa41pPAo
‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’ MP 557 (Piano)
Thomas Ken
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1rW2qLaeu0
‘The battle belongs to the Lord’ MP 639 (Guitar)
Jamie Owens-Collins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUabeop8r2s
(or ‘rock’ version by Petra https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLn6RZnJz-k )
Prayers.
‘Human relationships.’
Lord of all compassion, please grant that the barbaric practice of Female Genital mutilation affecting 200 million girls and women in up to 28 countries around the world and exacting such crippling physical and emotional suffering, will end, in your mercy.
God of justice, please guide those who are standing against racism. We pray against the idea that anyone be treated unjustly because of their nationality or skin colour. We pray for fairness and equality throughout our society.
God our protector may children, young people and other vulnerable individuals be wise in their use of digital technology. We pray that effective safeguards be introduced to protect and enrich their online experience.
Lord of the Church, we remember our sisters and brothers being persecuted for their faith. Although most of them are unknown to us, we all belong to Your family so please remind us to be faithful in prayer and to speak up to support them. May they be strengthened in faith by Your loving Spirit.
Loving Lord, thank you for marriages where spouses demonstrate faithful loyalty and kindness towards one another, to their families and out to the wider world. Please help couples whose relationships are fractured to find lasting healing and reconciliation. In Christ’s name.
Father, we remember those caring for someone who has advancing dementia. Help them to manage the sadness, strain and anxieties that inevitably come and grant moments of loving connection, precious memories, lucidity and laughter to lift their spirits. By Your grace.
Saviour, please instil compassion and generosity throughout our land towards refugee families and individuals who have been forced from their homes because of destitution, conflict, oppression and persecution. May we open our hearts to welcome them. Amen
(Based on Care prayer diary. ‘Human Relationships.’ (January- April 2022)
‘A prayer for Ukraine’
Lord of all people and all nations,
We lift before you the people of Ukraine and the people of Russia,
Each girl and boy, each woman and man living in fear of what tomorrow might bring,
We long for a time you spoke of through your prophet Isaiah,
When weapons of war would be beaten into ploughshares,
When nation will no longer lift up sword against nation,
We cry out to you for peace,
Protect those who only desire and deserve to live in security and safety,
Comfort those who fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones,
Change the hearts of those set on violence and aggression,
Fill earthly leaders with great wisdom to find paths to peace,
Please Lord come and have your way in your world,
May your will be done here, on earth as it is in heaven,
May your peace reign. Now and always,
We lift this prayer to you, our God who is able to do
more than we can ever ask or imagine,
In the name of Christ our Saviour,
(A prayer for Ukraine by David Thomas of Christian Aid)
Reading. Genesis 19:1-29
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
"My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.
Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom--both young and old--surrounded the house.
They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof."
"Get out of our way," they replied. And they said, "This fellow came here as an alien, and now he wants to play the judge! We'll treat you worse than them." They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.
But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door.
Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.
The two men said to Lot, "Do you have anyone else here--sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here,
because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it."
So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, "Hurry and get out of this place, because the LORD is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking. With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, "Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished."
When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.
As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, "Flee for your lives! Don't look back, and don't stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!"
But Lot said to them, "No, my lords, please! Your servant has found favour in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can't flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I'll die.
Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it--it is very small, isn't it? Then my life will be spared."
He said to him, "Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of.
But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it." (That is why the town was called Zoar)
By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land.
Then the LORD rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah--from the LORD out of the heavens.
Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities--and also the vegetation in the land.
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.
So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.
Hymn
‘All My days’ (Beautiful Saviour) MP 1024 (Piano)
Stuart Townend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTBJlzNvVTE
Sermon. ‘Judgment & Mercy’
Previously we saw Abraham’s urgent intercession with the Lord for Sodom. God is a holy God. He loves righteousness and hates sin. The outcry against Sodom was great and their sin very grievous. Abraham knows the Lord’s judgment must follow sin, since God is just. Abraham appeals to the Lord’s mercy. He prays that the city might be spared if 50 righteous people are found in it, then 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally only 10. Each time God agrees to his request, so that if only 10 righteous people are found in Sodom God will not destroy the city. We saw that Abraham’s intercession for Sodom serves as a model for our own prayers. The Lord’s Judgment must follow sin in our own society and in eternity. If we care for people as Abraham did we will pray for a turning away from evils in our land, we will pray for revival, for mass repentance and a turning to Christ-who is our only hope of Salvation in this life and the life to come.
In Chapter 19 we come to Sodom itself. As events unfold I want to look first at the Sodomites and then at the character of Lot.
The Sodomites.
Lot had already insisted that the 2 strangers- who are actually angels- stay with him, rather than spend the night in the square. It soon becomes apparent why. He is clearly aware of the treatment generally received by strangers in this vile city and wants to shield them from it. But even Lot’s actions do not stop the Sodomites! The scene is almost unbelievable in its revelation of their depravity. That someone should commit rape of any kind is horrific enough. But here (verse 4) we have “all the men from every part of the city of Sodom- both young and old” surrounding Lot’s house with the intention to commit this crime against his guests. If they had carried out their desires, and no doubt met resistance, the orgy would have led to murder as well, if these guests had been ordinary men.
Here we have old men as well as young driven by these lusts. Rather than practise them in secret, they shout out what they want in the street. No wonder God had told Abraham that “the outcry against Sodom was great and their sin so grievous”
Joe Dallas was actively homosexual and a church attender and at one time believed the “Gay Gospel”; the attempt to mesh homosexuality with Christianity. But he was challenged by God at a deep level when he realised the important thing was not what he hoped God might allow- but rather what was God’s will for him. We know what God’s will is from the Bible- God’s Word. Dallas’s book “The Gay Gospel?” gives clear biblical arguments against attempts to harmonise homosexuality with Christianity. (See also 6/2/22 materials, p6)
One of the arguments used by the pro -gay lobby is that rape- not homosexuality was the sin of Sodom. Dallas concedes the men certainly were proposing rape but adds “for such an event to include all the men of the city both young and old, homosexuality must have been commonly practised” He admits that homosexuality was only a part of Sodom’s wickedness. Ezekiel 16:49 refers to Sodom’s other sins: pride and idleness. “Neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy”. However, it was homosexuality that characterised the Sodomites and he cites Jude 7: “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion they serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire”.
Homosexuality is wrong because it departs from God’s Creation 1 ordinance. We see from Genesis 1 that God made sexual union for a purpose- the uniting of husband and wife into one flesh in marriage.
We explored last week (6/3/22, p5,6) the degeneracy of the godless mind described in Romans 1: The rejection of God as Creator, the proud claim to be wise without God, the worship of the created gift and consequent enslavement by sin leading to moral degeneracy in practise. The culmination of this slide is described in verse 27: “women exchanged natural relations for unnatural one. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another” (Romans 1: 27). The pattern in Romans 1 is a commentary on Sodom at the furthest end of that slide. But it also explains our society’s increasing moral degeneration. A number of people cannot understand our increasingly depraved society, the abandonment of moral values and the outright rejection of our once Christian heritage. We’re fighting a losing battle in society against abortion, the push for euthanasia, pornography, homosexuality, drug abuse, knife crime, youth suicide, and disobedience towards parents. How has this come to be? Well we’re following this same downward spiral we see in Romans 1.
God is our Creator. He knows what is best for us. He intended sex as a wonderful gift for the exclusive and private use of man and wife to help cement their relationship in love so they become one flesh. The marriage service book says “Marriage is given that with delight and tenderness they may know each other in love, and, through the joy of their bodily union, may strengthen the union of their hearts and lives”. What a contrast between that picture of marriage God intended we know for our happiness, compared to the cheapened, selfish misuse of sex we see in Sodom, and increasingly in our own day.
Are you rejecting God as the Sodomites did because you think life is to be found in a sexual and romantic love? You will never find life in idolising one of God’s gifts- however good that gift is. You will abuse, cheapen or destroy it if you rely on yourself. Rather you need His love and direction in your life if you are going to make the best of what He has given you:
One young woman has written “I used to search for intimacy through latching on to a ‘special someone,’ because I felt that as long as I had his love and approval everything would be ok. Yet, there was usually a high price tag…the giving of my body. The penalty I paid was that of feeling cheap, used and guilty…Then I learned of the unconditional love that God has for me and made a decision to ask Jesus to come into my life…and teach me what true love was all about. I can say with certainty He has made a difference! Instead of feeling cheap, used and guilty, I now know that I am valuable, forgiven…and have a new life that began the moment I asked Christ into my life. Because I have experienced an intimate love relationship with God first, I am now able to develop lasting, meaningful relationships with those around me. When I do marry I will enjoy sex in its proper context.” (From ‘Why Wait?’ Josh McDowell, p69)
When we look at the character of Lot we are presented here with a strange mixture of qualities. On the one hand he is hospitable towards the angels and he shows courage in attempting to shield his guests with his own body from the angry mob. However when we look closely at Lot in this passage he seems to be at home in Sodom.
While he doesn’t share in the Sodomites sexual sin, the cheap view of sex in that city has certainly influenced him. We are amazed that he is willing to sacrifice his 2 unmarried daughters to the lust of the crowd. No doubt he was in a confused state of mind in the midst of an emergency and wasn’t thinking straight.
But there is this double mindedness in Lot. Here is a man who had been at hand to experience with Abraham marvellous revelations and deliverances from God. But when he left Abraham he walked by sight rather than faith. He chose to live in the wealthy plain of the Jordan and pitched his tents near Sodom, even though the men of Sodom were wicked and sinning greatly against the Lord. By this time he has moved into the city. Was there ambition in this move? The desire for wealth beyond any other consideration? Lot’s standing at the gate may indicate he had some position in the City.
2 Peter 2:8 tells us Lot was a righteous man, who was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard around him. But there is no indication he tried to witness to them in any way in order to turn them back to God and away from their sins. Lot was not a Joseph or Daniel or even an Esther in this respect. He was not looking to fulfil a Godly purpose among the pagans. It is more likely he congratulated himself he could do so well, commercially and politically, living among an ungodly crowd.
It becomes clear that Lot’s compromised life has little impact for the Lord. In our passage Lot tries to warn his son in laws (14) about the coming judgment on Sodom, that the Lord is going to destroy the place, but they just laugh at him. It seems he had long since lost any influence with them. He doesn’t even bother to warn his own sons, presumably they were so deeply involved in Sodom’s wickedness he knew it would be useless. Perhaps they know what was really important to their father, and it didn’t seem to be his Faith. It’s true each must decide before the Lord. The Parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us that the son’s rebellion was not the fault of the father. However where fathers compromise with worldliness this does not help the situation within their families; their sons and daughters know what’s really going on.
Finally, Lot, his wife and 2 daughters have to be forcibly removed by the angels because of their lingering. Lot’s heart is still wrapped up with Sodom.
Meyer comments “Lot was a sorry wreck of a noble beginning. When he started forth, as Abraham’s companion from Ur, he gave promise of a life of quite unusual power and fruit. But he was one of those characters which cannot stand success. There is no temptation more insidious or perilous than that. The Enchanted Ground is more to be dreaded than the open assaults of Apollyon. More are ruined by the deceitfulness of riches than by cares of life.”
In Jesus Parable of the Sower He describes how the seed of the kingdom can be scattered and fall on ground containing thorns that grow up and choke the seed. Jesus explains that in such a heart, although the believer may have started well, material concerns: the worries of life and the deceitfulness of wealth are the thorns that have grown up to choke the seed. So the life is unfruitful. This is what has happened with Lot. It is also a good description of what has been called the “Carnal Christian”. A person who thinks they have the best of both worlds. The eternal benefit of knowing the Lord as Saviour- but their heart is also in the temporal benefits that result from worldly influence and possessions, and as time goes by the latter predominates. The Carnal Christian cannot understand living a life by faith; just as Lot couldn’t understand Abraham when Abraham chose the least promising place to live for himself but trusted God for the outcome. The Carnal Christian is instead forever measuring his or her decisions by economic or pragmatic criterion. What’s the financial bottom line?” or “Does it work?” His or her security is in the wealth they generate and the covering of every angle to provide for themselves. This in time becomes their prevailing passion and they lose any sense of living for the values of the Kingdom. The temptation to be independent of God in such ways and take the worldly attitude of “God helps those who help themselves” comes to us all. But it is a temptation to be resisted. We must each of us guard our hearts on this. Yes we must live in this world- we are surrounded by its values, but while we are in the world we must not be of the world. Jesus said “No-one can serve 2 masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon” (Matt 6:24)
So what was the outcome for the Sodomites? Judgment and destruction
The book of Jude in the New Testament refers to the coming day of judgment in verse 6 and then in verse 7 states that Sodom and Gomorrah serve “as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” The Lord Jesus himself used the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah as a warning for people about his Return which in itself will usher in Judgment. One day Christ will return and the New Testament judgments will take place. Justice will take place. But on that day it will not be a question of watching others get their comeuppance because of what they have done to you. True justice must be dispensed to all. That’s the nub. The biblical witness is that we are all sinners. I’m not just referring to sexual sins but the whole underlying pride and rebellion against God our Creator which manifests itself in all kinds of sins. We all fall short of God’s glory. We all are deserving of His judgment and punishment. Justice demands it. The only way we can be saved from the coming judgment and wrath is if God does something to rescue us. He has done that in Jesus Christ. Rico Tice explains how, he writes:
“At its heart the Christian faith is being saved from hell, through the cross, for heaven. At the cross we did the sinning and Jesus did the dying- the just punishment for the offence of sin is death and Jesus bore the condemnation and death we deserve. The wages of sin is death, and he took those wages in our place. He bore our sin, he paid our debt, he endured our penalty, he died our death to save us from hell.
When I was growing up in Uganda and Zaire, I had 2 passions- stamp collecting and butterflies. Both of these hobbies are brilliant in Africa, and both need a magnifying glass! But I soon found out that making little things bigger was not all a magnifying glass could do!
You can take a magnifying glass and concentrate the rays of the sun into a sharp point of intensity that it burns things. Imagine a massive moral magnifying glass through which passes not the sun’s rays, but God’s righteous anger at the wrongdoing in our lives; at the selfishness and hatred, at the lies and dishonesty, at the deceit and most of all the way that we’ve ignored and misused God in his world.
Picture all God’s anger focused and coming down through a massive magnifying glass with a terrible intensity until it hits one man in one point of history with such agony that he cries out, ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ That’s how he saves us from hell through the cross for heaven.”
“Saved from hell, through the cross for heaven”, but it first must be said if you reject God’s provision in Christ in this life, then the picture of Sodom’s destruction will become your own destiny. It becomes a picture of hell. If you reject God’s own provision at such great cost to Himself, then there is no provision left but only a fearful expectation of wrath to come.
On the other hand we have Lot. Lot narrowly escapes the judgment. And this powerfully speaks of God’s mercy upon him. The angels led him out of the city. So too, through the cross God has shown us mercy and it’s His provision, not ours. When you put your faith in Christ for your salvation the foundation has been laid. You are secure.
Now it’s true that on one level Lot’s life is a warning to us believers about not living as carnal Christians. Certainly 1 Corinthians 3 recommends we live lives consistent with that foundation: “Each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer lost; but he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames” (10-15)
Lot was saved as one escaping through the flames. The carnal Christian enters heaven as one escaping through the flames. The carnal Christian will enter heaven wishing they had lived their lives for Christ more faithfully and effectively here. But the essential point is that even the Carnal Christian will enter Heaven. For the same reason that
Even we will enter Heaven. And why
Even you can enter Heaven if you trust Christ for your salvation this morning.
His was an atoning sacrifice for all our sins- ‘Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
The reason is Christ. He has saved you from hell, through the cross for heaven.
When you are there standing before the Lord in eternity, with your regrets; your sins and failings in this life, He will welcome you as His dear child, it’s then you will know that God Himself has rescued you through Christ. It’s then you will appreciate that like Lot, He has forcibly removed you out of harm’s way and had mercy on you.
We are told ‘God remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe.’ (29) So too on the great day the Father will remember the Son so that you and I will not only escape the catastrophe, He will welcome us into His heaven. (Note 1 follows blessing.).
Hymn
‘Rejoice the Lord is king’ MP 575 (Piano) PTO
Charles Wesley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypvXPiBmRs4
Blessing
God the Father bless us, God the Son defend us, God the Spirit, keep us. Amen
Note
1For further evidences of Creation as opposed to failings of Evolutionary Naturalism see Updates 14/6/20 & 10/1/21, 14/2/20 on Angmering Baptist Church website. For Christian Creation worldview see excellent overview on our origins: Ken Ham’s “Science Confirms the Bible” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74UIt8uHQPs or I can give you a copy of “Creation & Evolution. Why it matters what you believe” by Colin Garner (Professor of Applied Thermodynamics at Loughborough University.)
Professor Stuart Burgess (Professor of Engineering, Bristol University) argues that the evolutionary story of ‘goo to you’ is fiction and contradicts observable science. Burgess in his book ‘The Design and Origin of Man’ deals with the question of similarities between humans and apes in Part 1 and shows that common features can be fully explained in terms of a common Designer. Part 2 of the book describes the unique design of man. He writes ‘the purposeful over- design of humans is a huge problem for evolution because evolution by definition cannot produce something beyond what is needed for survival.’ Part 3 of the book describes how the human body has a unique and fine beauty that sets man apart from all the other creatures in creation. Part 4 of the book presents historical evidence to show that the archaeological and fossil records clearly support the creation of man. This part also reveals how the archaeological record shows that there is no such thing as primitive humans. The final chapter shows how the term ‘missing link’ is as relevant today as it has always been. Professor Andrew Sims, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Leeds writes of this book “ Stuart Burgess is to be congratulated in marshalling this large body of evidence demonstrating that man could only be here in this world through deliberate design…This tour de force instils reverence and great admiration for God’s creation. It is a thought provoking and powerfully argued book.”
Homosexuality is presented in our culture in the same way that skin colour is; intrinsic to a person’s being. While this is true for skin colour the same is not true of homosexuality. Men and women’s bodies are observably designed to complement one another sexually. Neither can people in a homosexual relationship reproduce biologically, so they have no supposed ‘homosexual gene’ to pass on. Any attempt to find one has met with outright failure, principally because of this law of nature: https://arkencounter.com/blog/2019/10/31/uncover-lies-we-believe-with-dr-georgia-purdom/ Dr Georgia Purdom is a geneticist and makes the essential point at 37.51-38.45. The section looking at whether human homosexuality is valid because it is seen in the animal kingdom and studies conducted looking for a homosexual gene are surveyed from 34.15- 57.25. Dr Georgia Purdom also looks at whether there is a biological basis for transgenderism earlier in the presentation.
A liberal society commends respect and the toleration of others as people even though you may disagree with their position. Hence the importance of freedom of speech. However today there is a chilling tendency in our increasingly atheistic society if you don't say you believe in homosexuality or transsexuality per se, then you will be punished, your job will be taken away from you etc. Christian Concern stated in 2020 the Christian legal centre helped with at least 900 legal queries ranging from simple advice and support to court cases (The Ambassador Magazine. January 2021).
Amy Orr- Ewing writes “It is important to draw a distinction between ‘homophobia’- an irrational hatred or hostility towards homosexual people- and a disapproval of homosexual practice for confessing Christians on biblical grounds. The Evangelical Alliance writes: ‘we cannot however accept that to disapprove of homosexual practice on biblical grounds is in itself irrational, hateful or hostile’ The tendency of the gay lobby is to brand anyone who disagrees with their position as ‘homophobic’ is regrettable because it fails to consider the nuances of biblical interpretation and the consciences of believers.” (‘Why trust the Bible?’ (p120).)
David Barnes 9/3/22