Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Joke of Judgment: When the World Laughs at Wrath (Genesis 19:12–14)

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The Joke of Judgment: When the World Laughs at Wrath (Genesis 19:12–14) · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back. You are listening to Reformed
• 0:03
  Thinking. Glad to have you with us.
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  I'm your host and as always, I am joined by our resident expert
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  to really dig into the text. Our goal is to strip away some
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  of the cultural noise and get down to what the Bible is
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  actually saying. And we're glad you're joining us
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  for this deep dive. Today we have a text that is,
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  well, it's a heavy one, but it's also absolutely necessary for us
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  to understand. Where are we headed today?
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  We were turning our attention to the book of Genesis, but we're
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  not looking at the very beginning of the world, and
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  we're not looking at the flood this time.
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  We are zooming in on a very specific, very dark night in the
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  city of Sodom. We're looking at Genesis chapter
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  19, specifically verses 12 through 14.
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  Right. And when people hear Sodom,
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  their minds usually go straight to fire and brimstone.
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  That, or, you know, our current cultural debates about morality.
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  Sure, that too. But looking at our source
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  material for this discussion, it seems we're focusing on
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  something a little different. We are, we're looking at a
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  moment of interaction, a conversation really, that
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  happens right before the city is destroyed.
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  And to really grasp what's happening this passage, you have
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  to look at the the cognitive dissonance of the scene.
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  Cognitive dissonance. OK, I like that term.
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  Let's unpack that a bit. Set the scene for us.
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  What does that look like on the ground?
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  Well. Just try to imagine the internal
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  reality versus the external reality.
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  They're just worlds apart, OK? Internally, you know, inside
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  Lot's house, you have these angelic visitors.
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  The situation has just completely spiraled out of
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  control. This is right after the mob
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  scene at the door. Right after these visitors have
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  just struck a violent mob with blindness, the verdict on the
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  city has been read. The execution is, for all
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  intents and purposes, already underway.
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  So it's a moment of terrifying life or death urgency.
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  Absolutely. The clock is kicking down to 0
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  inside that house. So inside the atmosphere is
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  panic and divine judgement, but what about outside?
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  Outside, well, the city is likely asleep, or at least
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  winding down. The mob has scattered, probably
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  stumbling home in their sudden blindness.
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  The stars are out. It's just another night in
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  Sodom. Business as usual for the most
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  part. For the most part, and Lot's
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  sons in law are probably in their own homes, maybe resting,
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  maybe thinking about their business dealings for the next
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  day. And into this this clash of
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  realities, lot runs out with a message.
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  He runs out and tells them the Lord is about to destroy the
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  city. And here's where we get the
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  title of one of the essays we're looking at today, The Joke of
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  Judgment. Yeah, because their reaction, it
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  isn't fear. No, it isn't panic.
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  It's laughter. Precisely, the text says.
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  But he seemed to his sons in law to be jesting.
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  They thought he was joking. And that brings us to the
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  central tension we want to analyze today.
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  Why? Yeah.
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  Why? Why?
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  When you're presented with a message of life or death urgency
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  from a family member, would you laugh?
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  And more to the point for us, why does the world today
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  continue to view the wrath of God as some kind of a joke?
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  It's a haunting question, and we've got a couple of
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  theological essays guiding our discussion today analyzing this
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  specific interaction. And our mission, really, is to
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  look at the interplay between Divine Mercy, human compromise,
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  and that that terrifying hardening of the heart that lets
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  a person laugh on the edge of the abyss.
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  We're going to see that this isn't just a story about ancient
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  history. Not at all.
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  It's a story about the danger of a compromise witness and what it
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  actually means to be separate from the world.
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  OK, so let's jump into the first segment of our outline.
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  We're starting with Genesis 19, verse 12, and we're calling this
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  the initiative of mercy, right? So the angels turned a lot and
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  they ask a question. They say have you to anyone else
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  here, Sons in law, sons, daughters and anyone you have in
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  the city, bring them out of the place.
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  It sounds like, you know, a simple logistical question
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  doesn't. It like they're just taking a
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  head count who's on the evacuation.
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  List exactly, but theologically this is massive.
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  You absolutely have to contrast this with the chapter right
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  before it, Genesis 18. OK, Genesis 18, that's the
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  famous scene where Abraham is, well, he's sort of bartering
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  with God. He is, he's pleading.
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  Will you destroy the righteous with the wicked?
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  What if there are 50 righteous people?
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  What if there are 4030? All the way down to 10.
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  All the way down to 10. And Abraham is the one
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  initiating the plea there. He's interceding.
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  He's begging God to spare the righteous.
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  But here in Chapter 19, that's a great point.
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  Who takes the initiative? The angels do.
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  Lot doesn't ask them to save his family.
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  The angels ask Lot. Oh, that is a subtle but huge
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  distinction. I hadn't caught that.
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  Lot hasn't even said a word about his kids yet.
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  Not a single word. Before Lot can even formulate a
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  prayer for his family, God's messengers are already making a
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  way of escape for them. So this highlights an attribute
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  of God's mercy. It does.
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  It often outruns our own prayers, our own intercession.
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  God remembers His covenant with Abraham and by extension Lot,
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  even before the petitioner speaks.
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  He knows who belongs to his people.
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  And he moves to secure them. This is just it's the heart of
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  Reformed theology, isn't it? God is the initiator of
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  salvation, not man. That really frames mercy not as
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  a a reaction to our goodness or even to our asking, but as
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  something that flows directly from God's own character.
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  Yes. Now looking at that list, they
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  give sons in law sons, daughters.
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  There's a lot to discuss here about the scoop of the
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  household. There is.
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  This is a very covenantal principle.
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  In the modern West we tend to be hyper individualistic.
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  It's all about my personal relationship with Jesus.
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  Right. Just me and Jesus.
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  But in Scripture, time and again you see God dealing with heads
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  of households. Think of Noah.
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  His whole family gets on the ark because of him.
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  Exactly or think of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16 was
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  Paul say believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you
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  and your household. So the grace shown to Lot here
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  is spilling over onto his family.
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  Members, it's intended to and look at who was first on that
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  list. Sons in law, right?
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  The Hebrew word there is chetan. It refers to men who are
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  betrothed or married into the family.
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  Now think about who these men were.
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  They were natives of Sodom. They were sodomites.
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  They weren't righteous immigrants who came with lot
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  from Haran. So there's no reason to believe
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  they were believers or righteous in any way.
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  None at all. Their only claim to mercy, their
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  only ticket out of the coming fire, was their connection to
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  Lot. So a believer acts as a kind of
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  preservative in a culture. In a way, yes.
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  As long as Lot was there, and as long as they were connected to
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  him by marriage, they had an open door to salvation.
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  But there's a detail here that the sources point out, and
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  honestly, it's chilling. The angels ask about sons.
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  Yes, the Hebrew is Benika, your sons.
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  But when we get to the end of the story, when Lot actually
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  flees the city. Who's with him?
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  Just his two daughters and his wife, who, as we know, doesn't
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  make it all the way. The sons are missing.
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  They are. So the text specifically asks
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  about sons, which implies he might have had adult sons living
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  in the city, but they don't escape.
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  They're not even mentioned again.
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  The silence of the narrative there is just deafening.
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  It suggests that Lot likely had adult sons who were so, so
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  thoroughly integrated into the fabric of Sodom that they're not
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  even considered candidates for rescue by the end.
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  Or maybe they were part of the group that laughed.
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  That's a possibility. Or even worse, you have to
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  wonder if they were part of the mob at the door earlier that
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  night. We don't know.
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  The text is silent. That's a heavy thought, that you
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  could raise children who become so much part of the world that
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  when the fire comes, they just, they stay.
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  It turns the angels question. Have you anyone else here into a
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  kind of spiritual examination? It's not.
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  Just who's in your house? No.
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  It's lot. What's the state of your
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  spiritual stewardship? You've been living here for
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  decades. Who have you influenced for
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  righteousness? And the tragedy is that the
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  offer was broad anyone you have, but the acceptance was
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  terrifyingly narrow. The.
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  Scope of God's offered mercy was wide enough to include the whole
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  clan, but the hardness of their hearts narrowed the exit to
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  almost nothing and. That leads us right into the
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  command itself. In verse 13, the angels say
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  bring them out of the place. Bring them.
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  Out haats E men Hama kum. It's an imperative, it's a
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  command. And this.
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  Is so crucial for us to get salvation in the biblical sense
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  is a summons it's. Not a suggestion.
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  It's not an invitation to a focus group.
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  The angels don't say hey lot, maybe go ask your sons in law if
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  they'd be interested in taking a little trip, no?
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  It's get them out now. And notice the direction out.
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  Reformed soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, always
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  involves A separation. You're called out of darkness
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  and into light. You're called out of the world.
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  It's. A geographical and a spiritual
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  exodus it is. And the sources pointed out a
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  really sharp contrast here with earlier in the chapter.
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  Oh, right. At the beginning of Genesis 19,
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  the men of Sodom are at the door yelling at Lot to bring out his
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  guests. Yes, they want.
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  Him to bring them out so they can abuse them.
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  The world says bring out what is holy so we can defile it.
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  But. God says bring out what is mine
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  so I can save it. It's the.
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  Same verb, but for two totally opposing purposes. 2 different
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  kingdoms at work so. Why is this command so urgent?
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  Why the get out right now? It's because.
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  Of the ground of the judgment, the reason for the command, the
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  angels say, for we are destroying this place and the.
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  Hebrew grammar here is fascinating.
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  It is. The word is mush titim.
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  It's a participle. It means we are destroying, or
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  even better, we are Bert to destroy.
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  So it's effectively in the present tense in the.
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  Mind of God in the divine decree, the event is so certain
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  that it's spoken of as if it's already happening.
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  This isn't the potential future that depends on the stock market
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  or the weather. The verdict is in the sentence
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  is being carried out and the. Source material highlights this
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  next phrase as the reason for the verdict.
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  The outcry against them has grown great.
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  The word is SA aquatam. And this is such a key idea if
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  you want to understand divine wrath properly.
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  People have this caricature of God's wrath as him just losing
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  his temper, right The. Angry Old Testament God just
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  wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides to ZAP a
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  city. But this?
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  Word SA aquatam. It's a forensic legal term.
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  OK. It refers to the cry of an
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  oppressed victim appealing to a higher court for justice.
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  It's the same word used in Exodus for the slaves crying out
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  under their bondage in Egypt or in.
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  Deuteronomy for a woman crying out for help against an
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  attacker, right? So this tells us that Sodom
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  wasn't just a city having a good time, that God decided to punish
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  someone was getting hurt. Yeah, badly there.
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  Was real injustice, real oppression?
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  Sodom. Was a place of arrogance, of
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  violence, of brutal perversion. And that suffering, that
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  injustice, it rose up like a prosecutor's brief to the throne
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  of God. So when?
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  God destroys Sodom. He's not being capricious or
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  random. Not.
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  At all. He's acting as the judge of all
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  the earth. He's responding to the evidence
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  that has been presented that. Really refutes the idea of
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  deism, doesn't it? The idea that God just wound up
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  the clock and walked away completely.
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  The text is explicit. The Lord has sent us.
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  God intervenes in history. He acts judicially so.
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  Hell and judgement aren't the absence of God, no.
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  They are his active, holy opposition to the things that
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  ruin his creation. It's his justice in action, OK?
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  So we have the mercy, get your family out.
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  We have the reason for the judgement.
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  The outcry is great, the destruction is happening and now
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  we get to the tragedy. Segment 3.
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  The joke verse. 14 This is where it all goes wrong.
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  Lot goes out. He finds his sons in law, and he
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  delivers the message word for word up, get out, for the Lord
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  is about to destroy the city and the.
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  Reaction is just I mean, it's stunning, but he seemed to his
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  sons in law to be jesting the. Hebrew root there is Sichak, and
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  what's amazing, as we mentioned, is that it's the very same root
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  word as the name Isaac, which means he laughs.
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  But this is not the joyful laughter of Sarah, no.
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  This is the laughter of derision, of mockery.
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  It means playing the fool. So they.
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  Looked at Lot, this man who is presumably their father-in-law
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  and elder in the city, and they saw a comedian, that's how.
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  One of the sources puts it he appeared to them as one who was
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  Kim Sock playing a prank. They thought he was performing a
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  skit. They thought he was trying to be
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  funny. OK.
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  This is where it gets really engaging for me.
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  Why? What is going on in their heads
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  that leads them to laugh the. Sources offer two main reasons,
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  and they're both incredibly insightful.
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  Let's dive. The first one, the blinding
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  power of naturalism, yes. You have to try and think about
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  it from their perspective. They were walking by sight, not
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  by faith. Lot is standing there in the
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  middle of the night talking about fire from the sky.
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  But what do? They see, they look.
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  Up and they see the stars they see.
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  The city walls standing tall, they can probably smell the
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  bakeries getting ready for the morning.
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  The. Economy is humming.
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  Everything is normal. There is no physical evidence to
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  support Lot's panic. It's the.
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  Argument we see in second Peter chapter 3 the scoffers say where
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  is the promise of his coming forever since the father's fell
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  asleep all things are continuing as they were from the beginning
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  of creation it's the. Classic error of the
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  naturalistic mind. It's the assumption that the
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  continuity of the present guarantees the safety of the
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  future because. Judgment hasn't happened yet,
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  they assume it will never happen and they.
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  Mistake God's patience for apathy or.
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  Even for approval, they think, well, God hasn't stopped us yet,
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  so he must be OK with how we're living.
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  But. Naturalism blinds them to the
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  spiritual reality that the angels have just revealed, that
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  the verdict has already read. The sentence has already passed.
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  The material world just hasn't caught up yet that.
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  Brings us to the second reason, and honestly, this one hits a
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  lot harder. It does.
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  This is the compromise of the witness this.
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  Is the painful part of the text because we have to look at Lot's
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  own history, right? Let's be clear.
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  The New Testament tells us Lot was a righteous man.
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  Peter says that we have to ask where has he been living well
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  first? He pitched his tent towards
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  Sodom, then he moved into Sodom, and now, earlier in the same
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  chapter, where do we find him sitting?
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  In the gate of the city and. Sitting in the gate wasn't just,
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  you know, people watching, no. That was a place of civic
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  prominence, of business, of leadership.
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  It means a lot of integrated. He had position.
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  He had status in a wicked city. He had.
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  Likely laughed at their jokes. He had traded in their markets.
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  He had tolerated their culture for decades.
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  Yes. So when he suddenly bursts in at
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  midnight out of breath, acting like a prophet of doom, it.
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  Just doesn't land. It creates a massive credibility
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  gap, I think. So they looked at Lot and they
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  saw a hypocrite. They saw a man who had loved the
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  comforts and the status of Sodom just as much as they did so.
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  Why should they believe that he of all people, suddenly cares
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  about holiness and judgement? It's.
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  Devastating, isn't it it? Really is a man.
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  Who chases the world status and comfort for decades cannot
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  suddenly pivot and become a forceful witness in a single
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  night. It doesn't work.
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  The sons in law saw no discernible difference between
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  Lot's life and their own, so his sudden burst of piety just
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  seemed absurd. It seemed like a joke.
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  It's what? One of the essays called the
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  Funny Gospel the. Funny gospel, the World.
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  Laughs at the church when there's no correspondence
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  between our doctrine and our lifestyle.
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  If we say we believe in the coming judgement but we watch
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  the same trash talk the same way and love the same money as the
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  world, then when we. Finally, try to warn them.
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  They just laugh at us. They laugh, they think you don't
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  really believe that if you did, you wouldn't live just like us.
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  So. Lot's own compromise, his desire
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  to fit in, actually contributed to the hardening of their hearts
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  against the warning I. Believe it did.
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  He was distinct enough to be annoyed by their sin.
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  Peter says his righteous soul was tormented day after day, but
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  he wasn't distinct enough to be taken seriously by them.
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  He was a. Compromise, witness and a.
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  Compromise witness has no authority.
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  This is a good place to move into our synthesis section.
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  We need to put these pieces together.
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  What are the big theological takeaways here?
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  Well, the. First one that comes to mind is
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  the critical distinction between proximity and reality.
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  OK. Break that down for us.
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  The. Sons in law were in proximity to
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  the covenant. They were marrying into the
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  family of Lot, Abraham's nephew. They were hearing the warning
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  directly from the man who had just spoken with angels.
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  They were. As close as you could get
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  without being in the house, right?
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  But being near the covenant is not the same thing as being in
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  the covenant. That's a.
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  Serious warning for people today.
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  It's a. Huge warning.
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  You can be in a Christian home. You can be a member of a solid
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  Reformed Church. You can know all the vocabulary
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  of the faith, but spiritual proximity is not spiritual life
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  You. Can be sitting in a Pew every
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  Sunday and still be mocking the reality of judgement in your
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  heart. And be totally unaware of it.
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  Then there's the issue we touched on earlier, the silence
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  of God versus the patience of God.
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  Right the. Naturalism point the.
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  Sons in law interpreted God's silence as safety, as approval
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  even. But we learn here that God often
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  remains silent until the very moment that judgment becomes
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  irreversible. It's.
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  Like that outcry we talked about, the evidence piles up,
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  and it piles up silently until the verdict is issued.
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  And once. That verdict is issued.
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  We are destroying this place. It's too late to start
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  negotiating. The time for patience is over,
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  which brings. Us back to the necessity of
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  separation. The command was not fix sodom,
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  it was bring them out you. Cannot save people in Sodom.
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  You can only save them by bringing them out of it and
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  this. Is such a hard truth for our
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  culture, which loves the idea of engaging the culture and.
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  Engagement is good, but it often gets twisted into becoming
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  identical to the culture. This text is a clear warning
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  that fellowship with the doomed world is an unsafe place to be.
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  Grace. Doesn't cancel the command to be
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  separate, no. It establishes it.
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  It gives it its urgency, one of the sources said it well, the
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  kindness of God was the warning itself.
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  That's good. The kindest thing God did for
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  those sons in law was send a lot to tell them get out and they.
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  Laughed at it as we. Move toward our conclusion.
• 18:14
  We have to look at this whole story through the lens of Christ
• 18:17
  We have. To because Jesus actually brings
• 18:19
  this story up in the New Testament, he does in.
• 18:22
  Luke chapter 17 Jesus uses the days of lot as a picture of what
• 18:26
  it will be like right before the son of man returns and what.
• 18:29
  Does he choose to highlight? Does he talk about the gross
• 18:31
  sins of Sodom? The perversion.
• 18:34
  The violence, surprisingly. No, not in that specific
• 18:37
  passage. He lists the most mundane
• 18:39
  things. He.
• 18:40
  Says they were eating and drinking, buying and selling,
• 18:43
  planting and building normal. Life, just everyday activities,
• 18:47
  it's. Normal life.
• 18:48
  The danger that Jesus points out is not just open hostility to
• 18:52
  God, but being so absorbed in normalcy that the idea of
• 18:56
  judgement becomes impossible. It's the.
• 18:58
  Laughter of the sons in law all over again.
• 19:00
  They were too busy living their lives to believe that their
• 19:02
  lives could end so abruptly. But.
• 19:04
  Christ isn't just a commentator on Lot's story, He's the
• 19:08
  fulfillment of it. He is the better witness and.
• 19:11
  This is where we find our hope. Because if we're all being
• 19:13
  honest, we're all a bit like lot, aren't we?
• 19:16
  We. Hesitate.
• 19:17
  We compromise our witness is far from perfect.
• 19:21
  The. Text later says the angels
• 19:22
  practically had to grab Lot and his family by the hand and drag
• 19:25
  them out of the city. He.
• 19:27
  Lingered. He hesitated even after seeing
• 19:30
  everything but Christ. Did he hesitate?
• 19:33
  No. He went out voluntarily, Hebrews
• 19:35
  13 says he suffered outside the gate.
• 19:37
  He went out to face the judgement.
• 19:39
  Lot was. Saved so as by fire, escaping
• 19:42
  with the clothes on his back. But Christ entered the fire for
• 19:45
  us. That's.
• 19:46
  The Gospel right there it is. The outcry against sin, the
• 19:49
  outcry that went up from Sodom, that same outcry went up from
• 19:52
  our own lives. Our sins cried out for
• 19:54
  judgement. But.
• 19:55
  On the cross, Christ answered that outcry.
• 19:58
  He. Took the fire, he absorbed the
• 20:00
  judgement that should have fallen on our sodoms and.
• 20:03
  Thinking about the joke, about the mockery, Christ faced that
• 20:06
  too. He.
• 20:07
  Certainly did. The soldiers laughed, The crowds
• 20:10
  mocked him. He saved others, let him save
• 20:13
  himself. He bore the laughter of the
• 20:15
  world so that we could escape the weeping and gnashing of
• 20:18
  teeth. The text.
• 20:19
  Mentions lot running to a little city called Zoar for safety
• 20:22
  right a. Physical city of refuge but
• 20:24
  Christ is the true zoar he is the true city of refuge the.
• 20:29
  Only way to escape the joke becoming a tragedy is to be
• 20:31
  found in him union. With Christ and that final
• 20:35
  distinction from the outline is so important to laugh at lot was
• 20:38
  foolish, but to. Laugh at Christ is fatal, yes.
• 20:41
  The sons in law laughed at a compromised, flawed messenger.
• 20:45
  Today the world laughs at the perfect Son of God who is the
• 20:49
  message himself. And that is a far more dangerous
• 20:51
  position to be in. So let's.
• 20:53
  Wrap this up. We've walked through the text
• 20:54
  we've seen the mercy that takes the initiative and commands
• 20:57
  bring them out. We've.
• 20:58
  Seen the justice that explains the reason the outcry is great
• 21:02
  and. We've seen the tragic unbelief
• 21:05
  that mocks the warning. He seemed to be jesting.
• 21:08
  It's a. Progression that really forces a
• 21:09
  decision. You read the story and you have
• 21:12
  to put yourself in it. You're either in the group that
• 21:14
  laughs or you're in the group that flees.
• 21:16
  There's no middle ground. I want to.
• 21:18
  Leave our listener with a final thought, something to chew on
• 21:20
  this week. Just consider the morning after
• 21:22
  the sun. Rose just like any other day,
• 21:25
  and then the fire fell and the. Laughter stopped.
• 21:28
  Immediately that's. The thing about this kind of
• 21:30
  joke, the punchline, is not a funny one.
• 21:32
  The joke ended abruptly and it ended forever.
• 21:35
  So the question for you listening right now is this.
• 21:38
  Is your current comfort, your nice house, your steady job,
• 21:41
  your normal life? Is it making the warnings of
• 21:45
  scripture sound like a joke to you?
• 21:47
  Are you? Maybe without even realizing it,
• 21:49
  mistaking God's patience for his approval, we'd.
• 21:52
  Urge you to take the warning as mercy.
• 21:54
  Take the command to flee to Christ as the greatest kindness.
• 21:57
  Don't wait for the morning to find out who was right.
• 22:00
  Amen. That is all the time we have for
• 22:02
  this deep dive into reformed thinking.
• 22:05
  We will catch you next time.