Latest / Reformed Thinking / Don’t Look Back: Mercy, Judgment, and the Only Refuge (Genesis 19:23–26)

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Don’t Look Back: Mercy, Judgment, and the Only Refuge (Genesis 19:23–26) · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reform thinking. I have a stack of materials in
• 0:04
  front of me today that is honestly a little intimidating.
• 0:08
  Chuckles just a little. We have commentaries.
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  We have linguistic notes on Hebrew syntax, some historical
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  maps of the Jordan Valley, and of course the Westminster
• 0:18
  Confession of Faith A. Full toolkit.
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  It is, and we're going to try and synthesize all of this to
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  understand one of the most famous and I think probably one
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  of the most misunderstood events in the entire Bible.
• 0:30
  Yeah, I agree with that. We're looking at Genesis 19,
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  specifically verses 23 through 26.
• 0:35
  It's a text that carries a lot of baggage.
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  I mean, when people hear Sodom and Gomorrah, they usually have
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  a very specific image that comes to mind.
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  They think of a disaster movie, screaming dark skies, maybe
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  some, you know, ominous Thunder rolling in the background.
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  That's the popular imagination. But looking at the notes here on
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  Gross 23, the text paints a completely different picture.
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  To start with, It does. It isn't dark at all.
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  In fact, the whole scene opens with a sunrise.
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  That's right, a quiet, ordinary morning.
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  Verse 23 says the sun had risen upon the earth when Lot came to
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  Zoar. If you just read that by itself,
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  it sounds like the beginning of a nature documentary.
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  You can almost hear it. The birds are singing.
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  The sun is coming up over the mountains.
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  The market in Sodom is probably, you know, setting up for the
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  day. It feels normal.
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  And that normalcy is the terrifying part.
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  If you catch anything from our discussion today, I really want
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  it to be this. That sunrise is not just a
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  weather report. It's more than.
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  That it's a spotlight. It eliminates the two
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  simultaneous realities that define all of history from, you
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  know, a Reformed perspective. You have the absolute mercy of
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  God, which we see in Lot arriving say, early at Zoar, and
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  you have the absolute judgement of God, which is hovering just
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  milliseconds away from Sodom. So it's the ultimate calm before
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  the storm. But looking at our sources,
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  we're trying to do something pretty specific today.
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  We aren't just retelling the story, we want to apply a
• 2:00
  theological framework to it. The notes here mention intrusion
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  ethics. Yes, this is a concept we really
• 2:07
  need to grasp to understand why this story is even in the Bible.
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  Intrusion ethics. Sounds academic, I know.
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  A little bit, yeah. But the idea is pretty simple.
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  Normally God allows history to play out.
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  He lets the wheat and the weeds grow together.
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  Like Jesus said, He allows the wicked to prosper for a time,
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  but occasionally. Occasionally.
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  Occasionally the final judgment, the judgment that belongs at the
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  very end of history, it intrudes into the present.
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  So it's like a flash forward. It's a preview.
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  That's a great way to put it. Sodom isn't just a natural
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  disaster, it's a historical trailer for the Second Coming
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  and the Final Judgement. Wow, it's God ripping the
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  curtain back and showing us what the end of the world looks like
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  right in the middle of history. That sense the stakes pretty
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  high. We are looking at a historical
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  reality that demonstrates the sovereign severity of God.
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  A powerful phrase. So let's get into the text
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  itself. I want to go back to that
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  sunrise in verse 23. The sun had risen upon the
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  earth. I'm looking at the linguistic
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  notes here and there was something interesting about the
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  Hebrew syntax. There is.
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  The Hebrew word order is very telling.
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  The text places the subject Hashimish, the sun, right at the
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  front of the sentence before the verb.
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  Why is that significant? Well, it's for emphasis.
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  It's highlighting the prominence of the sun.
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  It underscores the brilliance and the the undeniable presence
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  of the day. So the writer is going out of
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  his way to tell us, hey, it was a really nice day.
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  He. Is and think about the theology
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  behind that. We call this common grace.
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  The sun shines on the righteous and the wicked.
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  That morning the sunlight hit the walls of Sodom.
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  It warmed the streets. The people woke up.
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  They stretched, maybe start cooking breakfast.
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  They had absolutely no idea that their time had run out.
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  That is chilling. It implies that the world feels
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  safest right before it falls apart.
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  That is the pattern. We often mistake God's patience
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  for permission. We think because the sun came up
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  today, everything is fine. Yeah, that because judgement
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  didn't fall yesterday, it won't fall today.
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  Exactly, but the people of Sodom enjoyed the warmth of God's sun
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  just moments before they face the fire of God's wrath.
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  There's also this critical timing element here.
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  The verse says the sun rose when Lot came to Zohar.
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  I was reading a commentary by Calvin on this and he just
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  hammers this point about how specific the timing is.
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  The destruction doesn't start until Lot is actually safe.
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  That connects back to what the angels told a lot earlier in the
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  chapter. They said I can do nothing until
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  you arrive there. This shows us that God isn't
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  impulsive. He's not flying off the handle
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  in a rage. Not at all.
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  He is deliberate, He investigates, he warns, and he
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  distinguishes. He separates the vessel of Mercy
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  Lot from the vessels of Wrath the.
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  Fire is literally being held back.
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  It's restrained until Lot crosses the city limits of Zoar.
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  That's right. Speaking of Zoar, I was looking
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  at the geography notes. This wasn't where Lot was
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  supposed to go, was it? No, it wasn't.
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  The angels told him to flee to the mountains.
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  They wanted him to get as far away as possible.
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  But lot, well, Lot negotiates. He bargains with the angels.
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  He says the mountains are too far, he's too scared he might
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  die on the way. He points to this little town
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  nearby and basically asks can I just go there?
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  It's a small place. The Hebrew word he uses is
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  mitsar, which means little or insignificant.
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  He's essentially saying, look, it's such a tiny town, surely it
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  doesn't matter if you spare it. It's a display of incredibly
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  weak faith. He's trembling.
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  He's second guessing the messengers of God.
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  And he's trying to dictate the terms of his own rescue.
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  Yes, and yet God agrees that's. What surprises me, You'd expect
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  God to say no? I said the mountains go to the
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  mountains. Yeah, but he accommodates lot.
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  It's a stunning picture of God's patience with weak believers.
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  God doesn't endorse Lot's fear, and he certainly doesn't endorse
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  his disobedience, but he accommodates his weakness.
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  He grants the request. He does.
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  Zor becomes a small mercy for a man who is barely holding it
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  together. So Lot enters zor the sun is
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  fully up, and that is the moment the clock strikes midnight, so
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  to speak. That's it.
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  The sunrise functions as a deadline.
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  That is the take away for verse 23.
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  Mercy has a window, but judgement has an appointed hour.
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  The sunrise was the line in the sand.
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  Once a lot is safe, the restraint is lifted.
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  Which brings us to verse 24. This is the hinge of the entire
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  narrative. Then the Lord reign on Sodom and
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  Gomorrah, sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
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  The shift is. Jarring.
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  The language here changes instantly from the calm of the
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  morning to absolute catastrophe. This is the intrusion we talked
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  about, and I want to pause here because we really need to
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  address how people try to explain this away.
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  OK, if you read some of the more liberal commentaries or you
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  know, skeptical analysis, you will see a lot of attempts to
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  naturalize this event. I saw this in the research
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  stack. There are theories that it was a
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  volcanic eruption or an earthquake that cracked open
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  natural gas in bitumen pockets which then ignited.
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  Right. They try to make it sound like
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  Lot just happened to get out before a geological accident.
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  We have to be very firm in rejecting that view.
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  The text just does not allow for it.
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  The text specifies the direction of the judgement.
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  Min Hashemi. Min Hashemi, I'm out of heaven.
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  This is vertical. This isn't the earth belching up
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  fire. This is heaven sending it down.
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  It is a supernatural act of God. It's a direct intervention.
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  And Speaking of the text, there's a very peculiar
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  grammatical phrasing in this verse.
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  It says the lone reigned from the Lord.
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  It repeats the divine name Yahweh.
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  Yahweh reigned from Yahweh. Now, a casual reader might just
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  think that's repetitive writing, but the Church Fathers didn't
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  think so. I have notes here mentioning the
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  Council of Sermium and Justin Martyr.
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  They saw this as a major theological hint.
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  They did. When we interpret Scripture with
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  Scripture, what we call the analogy of faith, we start to
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  see the plurality within the Godhead here.
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  OK, unpack that a little. You have Yahweh on earth in the
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  form of the angels or the pre Incarnate Christ who had been
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  speaking with Abraham calling down judgement from Yahweh in
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  heaven, who we would understand as the Father.
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  That's a lot to wrap your head around.
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  Yeah, it implies the Trinity is active in the judgement of
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  Sodom. It does, and it corrects a very
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  common misconception people have today.
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  We tend to think of the Old Testament God as the mean judge
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  and Jesus in the New Testament as the nice Savior.
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  Right, that's. Split.
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  But here we see the Son acting in concert with the Father to
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  execute judgement. The whole Godhead is involved in
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  the condemnation of sin. You cannot separate the Savior
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  from the judge. That gives you very different
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  view of Jesus. He's just the one who catches
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  us. He's also the one who upholds
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  the holiness of God. They're precisely.
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  Now let's look at the ammunition used here.
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  Sulfur and fire. Gopher, Vaish.
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  Why Sulfur? Sulfur, which the older
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  translations call brimstone, had a specific use in the ancient
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  Near East. It wasn't just something that
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  burned hot, it was used for sterilization.
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  It was a cleaning agent used to fumigate or purify a space.
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  So it's almost medical, like cauterizing a wound.
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  In a terrifying way, yes. God isn't just smashing these
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  cities because he is angry. He is sterilizing the land.
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  He is cauterizing the infection of sin that had taken root
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  there. So it's both punitive punishing
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  the people, and purgative. Purgative.
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  Cleansing the earth, yes. And the irony here is that it's
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  described as rain. Rain is usually the best thing
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  that can happen in an arid region like the Jordan Valley.
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  It brings life. Makes the crops grow.
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  That is the reversal. The ordinary gifts of creation
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  are turned upside down. Rain should nourish, but here it
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  consumes. When a society lives in total
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  rebellion against the Creator, even the blessings of nature
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  turn into instruments of judgment.
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  The very sky that usually gives them water now gives them fire.
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  That theme of reversal continues right into verse 25.
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  And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the
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  inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
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  The verb there is havac. Havac, A crucial word.
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  It means to overthrow, to turn, to overturn.
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  It becomes the technical term in the rest of the Bible for what
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  happened to Sodom, right? But the concept here is D
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  creation D. Creation.
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  So if Genesis 1 is God bringing order out of chaos, separating
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  the waters, making the land fruitful.
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  Then Genesis 19 is God turning order back into chaos.
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  He is dismantling the structure of life in that valley.
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  He is taking the created order and collapsing it.
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  The list of destruction is so comprehensive, Cities,
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  inhabitants, the valley. But then it adds this one little
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  detail and what grew on the ground?
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  Why does the text care about the plants?
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  Why destroy the vegetation? That detail is so significant it
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  shows us that sin is not a private matter.
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  We love to tell ourselves my sin is my business.
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  It doesn't hurt anyone else, sure.
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  But biblical theology tells us that sin stains the land.
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  The moral ecosystem affects the physical ecosystem.
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  It reminds me of Genesis 3 where the ground is cursed because of
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  Adam's sin. Correct.
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  And remember, back in Genesis 13, this area was described as
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  the garden of the Lord. It was like, like Eden lush.
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  Exactly. Now, because of the wickedness
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  of the people living there, God strips the ground of its
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  capacity to produce life. It becomes a wasteland.
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  He wipes the slate clean. Literally.
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  And of course, it mentions all the inhabitants.
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  This brings up the topic of corporate judgement, which is
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  really hard for modern Western listeners to swallow.
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  We're so individualistic. We are we think of society as
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  just a random collection of individuals who make their own
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  choices. But God judges societies as
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  societies. Sodom wasn't a place where a few
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  people were bad. It was a culture of settled
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  wickedness. Settled wickedness.
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  That's a strong phrase. It is the opposite of settled
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  holiness, right? The corruption was total.
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  It was systemic. There were no innocent
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  bystanders in Sodom because the culture itself had been given
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  over to depravity. So when God judges a nation or a
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  city, he treats it as a corporate entity.
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  The judgment is comprehensive because the corruption was
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  comprehensive. So we have this massive cosmic
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  scene. The sun is up, the fire is
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  falling, the cities are being overturned, the vegetation is
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  being incinerated. And then, right in the middle of
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  this wide angle shot of destruction, the camera zooms in
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  tight. There's 26.
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  There's 26. But Lot's wife behind him looked
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  back and she became a pillar of salt.
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  This is the pivot point of the whole passage.
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  We go from the fate of nations to the fate of one single human
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  heart. Let's break this down because
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  there's so much packed into this one sentence.
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  OK, first it says she was behind him.
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  That's the first clue that something is wrong.
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  The Hebrew is me Akarive. It implies she was lagging.
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  Lot is presumably moving forward, perhaps dragging his
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  daughters by the hand as the angels instructed.
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  But she's trailing. She's trailing, so even before
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  she looks back, her body language is saying something.
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  Yeah. It indicates a spiritual
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  reluctance. She's physically leaving the
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  city, but she's dragging her feet.
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  She's being pulled along by Grace, but she is resisting.
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  And then comes the action. She looked back.
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  The verb isn't a bot. I looked this up in the lexicon
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  and it seems like it means more than just a glance.
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  You are right, Nabat implies a gaze.
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  It means to regard, to consider, to pay attention to.
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  This wasn't a reflex. She didn't just turn her head
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  because she heard a loud explosion.
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  No, She stopped, and she looked with longing.
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  So it wasn't curiosity, it was nostalgia.
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  It was nostalgia for a condemned world and we have to remember
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  she was explicitly commanded in verse 17.
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  Do not look back. This was direct disobedience to
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  a clear word from God. But the motivation is what
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  breaks your heart. It is.
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  She wanted deliverance from the consequences of Sodom.
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  She didn't want to burn, but she didn't want deliverance from the
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  cravings of Sodom. She wanted to be saved from the
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  fire, but not from the world. That is the tragedy.
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  She loved the city more than she loved the rescue.
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  She is the archetype of the person who tries to hold onto
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  God with one hand and the world with the other.
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  And the consequence is immediate and, well, bizarre.
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  She becomes a pillar of salt. Netsiv, Milac.
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  Why salt? Is there a symbolic connection
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  there? Salt is very rich with symbolism
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  in the Bible. Usually we think of it as a
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  preservative or a sign of a covenant.
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  Sure, salt of the earth. Right.
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  But in the context of judgment, especially in the ancient Near
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  East, salt signifies a curse. It signifies sterility.
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  Like salting the earth so nothing can grow there again.
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  Exactly. Deuteronomy 29.23 actually
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  describes the judgement of Sodom as sulfur and salt, a land that
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  cannot be sown or produce grass. By becoming a pillar of salt,
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  she has identified with the judgement of the land.
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  So she becomes part of the landscape.
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  She refused to leave. She becomes what she loved.
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  She turned her heart back to the city that was being salted with
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  judgement. So she became a monument of that
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  judgement, a permanent fixture of barrenness.
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  It's a haunting image, a woman frozen on the plane, looking
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  back forever. And Jesus himself brings her up
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  in the New Testament. He does and Luke 17.32 he gives
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  one of the shortest sermons in history. 3 words.
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  Remember Lot's wife? It is so urgent.
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  Jesus uses her as a warning for the last days.
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  He's warning against the double minded person, he says in that
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  same passage. Whoever seeks to preserve his
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  life will lose it if you try to keep your old life.
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  Your worldly attachments, your secret loves, you will lose
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  everything. You cannot serve 2 masters.
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  You cannot. And Lot's wife stands there as a
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  silent witness to that truth. You can be incredibly close to
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  salvation. Think about her privileges.
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  She was married to a righteous man.
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  Angels in her living room. She was literally held by the
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  hand of God's messenger. She was halfway to Zoar.
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  But close isn't enough. Proximity is not possession.
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  You can be near the things of God.
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  You can be in a Christian family.
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  You can be in church every Sunday and still perish if your
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  heart belongs to Sodom. So we've walked through the
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  text. We've seen the deceptive
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  sunrise, the supernatural fire, the D creation of the valley,
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  and the tragedy of the woman who looked back.
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  But this is Reformed thinking, so we need to ask, how does this
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  point to Christ? Right?
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  Because if we just stop here, it's a pretty bleak story.
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  It is bleak if we don't have the gospel.
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  We have to look at the culmination of these themes in
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  Christ. Let's go back to Zohar.
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  Lot's refuge was a little one. It was a temporary shelter.
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  We find out later he was afraid to stay there, so he moved to a
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  cave. It wasn't a perfect refuge.
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  We need a better Zohar. We need the true and better
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  Zohar, who is the one who made himself little for us, who made
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  himself of no reputation to save us.
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  That's crazy. He is the city of Refuge.
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  And thinking about the fire in Sulphur, in Genesis 19, the fire
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  falls on the guilty sinners. But at the cross, the fire of
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  God's wrath, that same holy reaction against sin that we see
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  in Genesis 19, fell on the sun. Jesus took the sulfur in the
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  fire. He faced the sovereign severity
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  of God. It's the great reversal again.
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  In a good way this time, yes. When Jesus was overthrown, that
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  word hafak outside the city so that we could be brought inside
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  the city of God. He was forsaken, so he wouldn't
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  be. He took the fire so we could
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  have the rain of living water. That changes how we read the
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  story. We aren't just reading it to be
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  scared of fire. We're reading it to be grateful
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  for the shield we have in Christ.
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  Yes. So let's land the plane with
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  some application. We like to use the framework of
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  head, heart and hands. Let's do it.
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  Let's start with the head. What do we need to believe?
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  We need to believe in the severity of God.
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  That is so countercultural. We live in a world that loves a
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  therapeutic deity. We do.
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  We want a God who just wants us to be happy and affirms
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  everything we do. But Genesis 19 smashes that
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  idol. We must intellectually submit to
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  the truth that God is holy. And his justice is retributive.
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  Yes, he really does judge sin. Hell is a real place.
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  We cannot edit God's character to make him more palatable to
• 18:05
  modern tastes. If we don't understand the
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  severity of the sickness, we won't value the cure.
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  That's it. Now the heart.
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  This has to connect to Lot's wife.
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  This is the most searching part for me personally.
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  We have to confront the idol of worldliness.
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  I would ask you, the listener, to really examine yourself.
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  What do you secretly long for? What is the thing that if God
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  said leave it behind right now, you would hesitate?
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  That backward glance. We need to repent of the
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  backward glance. Do not let nostalgia for your
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  old sins pedify your soul. We often leave the sin
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  physically. Maybe we stop the behavior, but
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  we keep revisiting it in our minds.
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  We scroll through it. Mentally, we miss it.
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  That is the heart of Lost Wife and it is deadly.
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  And finally, the and is the action.
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  Obedience, and specifically, urgent obedience.
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  The sun is rising. The time is short.
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  We need to be like the angels with Lot.
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  There is an urgency to evangelism.
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  We need to tell our neighbors, our friends, that the calm they
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  see in the world right now is deceptive.
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  The deadline is coming. And I think there's a specific
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  word for fathers here or heads of households looking at lot, he
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  really failed in leadership, didn't he?
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  He did. He lingered.
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  He hesitated. He had to be dragged.
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  Fathers, we must lead our families with decisiveness.
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  We have to drag our families away from spiritual danger.
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  Whether that's the media they consume.
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  Or the secular education that catechizes them and Sodom's
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  values. Or the peer groups that pull
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  them away. We have to take them by the hand
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  and move them toward Christ. Do not negotiate with the world
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  like Lot did. So we leave the listener with
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  this image, the sun rising on a quiet morning, the fire falling
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  from heaven, and a woman standing frozen on the plane.
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  It is the ultimate tension. The sun rises, the fire falls,
• 19:50
  and the woman looks back. And the question the text asks
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  us is where are you? Looking That's the only question
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  that matters. The only safe place from the
• 19:57
  fire of God's holiness is the refuge God himself provides, and
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  that refuge is Christ. If you are in him.
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  If you are in him, the fire has already fallen on him.
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  You are safe, but if you are just near him.
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  If you're just near him, but your heart is looking back at
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  the world. Remember Lot's wife, she isn't
• 20:17
  just a statue and a story, she is a sermon.
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  Are you fleeing to Christ or are you looking back?
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  That is a heavy word, but a necessary one.
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  Thank you for walking us through that.
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  It's a privilege. And thank you for listening to
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  this deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 20:32
  Until next time.