Introduction
Are
you a good haggler? Do you like to quibble a bit over items that have been
knocked down in a sale to maybe try and get an extra 10% off? Kathie loves to
phone rival utility suppliers and car insurance companies once a year when the
contract’s up for renewal and I think she is brilliant at driving them down. “Eon
are offering me £15 less a month. If you cannot beat that I’ll just have to
switch to them.” “Churchill are offering free breakdown cover. Throw that in
and we might have a deal…” And so on. She saves us a small fortune.
My
son in law Iain does the same thing but in the shops. He quite shamelessly
bargains down poor sales assistants in big High Street outlets. He was in
charge of the menswear purchasing for his wedding to our daughter. We went to
this retail park and said “Watch this.” He went straight for the shop with the
best offers in the window. We spent about an hour trying stuff on (for me, it
felt like a couple of months in Guantanamo Bay – I hate shopping).
The
time we were taking was really annoying for the sales assistant who just wanted
a quick sale so he could attend to other customers. After an hour, finally Iain
says, “Look, we’re fairly interested in buying two suits off you, although the
shop down the road have better quality ones. I don’t know… Look, why don’t you just
throw in a couple of shirts and belts and we’ll call it a deal.” The guy caved
in. Anything to get us out of the shop. In the end we got two suits, two
shirts, two belts for 60% of the sale price of the suits. I thought, “This guy
is definitely good enough for my daughter.”
Well,
it’s one thing to do this on the phone and in the shops, but have you ever seen
prayer in this kind of way? Having a good haggle? Trying to strike a tasty bargain
with Almighty God? I suspect it’s not a model we tend to use readily for our
own praying but one of the greatest prayers in the Old Testament is not all
that far off what I have just described. And it comes in Genesis 18…
Background
In
case you’re not all that familiar with this story, let me try and set the scene
for you.
Abraham
and his nephew Lot have travelled to a land called Canaan and, to cut a long
story short, in Genesis 13 they end up deciding it’s probably best they go
their separate ways. So Abraham takes Lot and says “Look north, south, east and
west. Which bit do you want?” Lot looks south and sees a wilderness. He looks
north and sees scrubland. He looks west and knows there’s trouble from tribal warriors.
He looks east towards the River Jordan and sees a well-watered valley.
Unsurprisingly, Lot says “I think I’ll take that bit over there, to the east.”
And Abraham says “O.K.”
Years
later, Lot has made his home in one of the settlements of that plain – in fact,
it’s the biggest of them all, a city called Sodom. And it seems he did well
there because in Genesis 19.1 we find him sitting in the gateway of the city
which means he’s become a man of standing, probably a magistrate or a judge.
Two visitors travel from Abraham to see him and spend the evening in his home.
Then
there is a quite shocking episode which shows how evil that place was. A mob of
men turn up, young men and old men we’re told, they surround the house and call
out to Lot to send his guests out so they can rape them in the streets. To his
credit, Lot refuses but to his shame, to try and placate them, he says they can
abuse his two virgin daughters instead.
But
the mob, instead of having any conscience that what they are demanding is
wrong, just complain that Lot is being judgemental towards them – it’s there in
19.9. “This fellow comes here from another country, takes our jobs, and now he’s
offending us by being judgemental.” (This is all very modern isn’t it?) They get
violent, they threaten Lot, and try and beat down the door. It’s clear that
Sodom is no place to bring up a family. They can’t stay. It has become a
lawless, perverted, violent, wicked place and Lot realises for his and his
family’s safety they need to flee at first light. Which is what they do.
That’s
the background. As we know, Sodom and Gomorrah are proverbial in our language.
People still associate the names of these places with decadence, sin, vice, depravity
and overindulgence. We get our English word ‘sodomy’ from the name of that city
of course, and in our day, the excesses of that place have become mainstream
once again. There’s nothing revolutionary about the sexual revolution. It’s as
old as the human race.
These
two cities were situated in the Jordan valley by the Dead Sea which is near the
northern edge of the biggest and deepest gash on the Earth’s surface; the Great
Rift Valley. It starts in Mozambique in southern Africa and runs as far north
as Lebanon, just south of Turkey. The Dead Sea is the lowest point of the whole
valley – in fact, at 1,400 feet below sea level, it’s the lowest point on Earth. Sodom was the lowest point on
earth physically but it was also the lowest point morally and spiritually.
People sank to lower depths there than anywhere else.
But
people, once again, have become obsessed by the very things that led to the
downfall of these cities. Tellingly, such was the constant pressure of the
culture around him to accept and condone and excuse and approve what was
happening in Sodom that Lot became confused in his own conscience. He didn’t
really know what was right and wrong any more.
He
had been a righteous man the Bible says, he was a magistrate, but he ended up morally
all at sea and messed up. What was he doing offering his daughters for gang
rape instead of his guests? It’s totally sick isn’t it? But the constant promotion
of sin in a culture strains the conscience. It wears down your sense of right
and wrong. It erodes the boundaries of what you know is true. It gnaws away at
your ingrained sense of holiness and decency – the attrition of it is
exhausting.
It’s
why it says in the New Testament, “Do not be conformed to the pattern of this
world.” That was written to young Christians in Rome, the most decadent,
depraved, debased city in the Empire – the capital of corruption, the home of
hedonism, the epicentre of overindulgence. Don’t let the world squeeze you into
its mould. This is such a battle for us. And it’s for that world that Abraham
prayed.
The Outcry against
Sodom
Back
to our reading, in v20 God says “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is
great.” Understandably. But where did that outcry come from? Was it just that
the place was so infamously and manifestly squalid that the situation itself cried out for God to do something
about it?
Or
was it the outcry from the distressed hearts of parents, of brothers, of
sisters who were watching their loved ones getting sucked into this vortex of
vice? Was it a crying out to God in prayer that their loved ones would get out
of it? How loud is the outcry to God against our great cities today? How loud
is the outcry for victims of messed-up lives in London, in Berlin, in Las Vegas
and in every city where lives are being destroyed in the ways they were in
Sodom and Gomorrah?
The Outcry for Sodom
Well,
that’s the outcry against the city, but what follows is an outcry for the city. The Bible shows us
Abraham’s frank, courageous and persistent prayer.
It’s
frank. “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” he asks. “Lord, are
you just going to lump good people and bad people together? You wouldn’t do
that would you?” Abraham knew God’s heart, he was God’s friend the Bible says.
So in his prayer he lifts to God the longings, the yearnings, the struggles of anyone
left in Sodom who still had a heart for God and his ways.
It’s
courageous. “Far be it from you!” he says to God. “You’re not like that, you’re
the Judge of all the Earth and you will do the right thing won’t you?” It
sounds like he’s not really sure that God will be fair. All of us are tempted sometimes
to say that God is not fair. “Why did God allow my friend to die?” “Why didn’t
God stop that earthquake in Taiwan?” “Why does God let terrorists commit
atrocities?” Abraham challenges God on his record. He’s not asking for mercy.
He’s asking for justice.
And
it’s persistent. How do you feel when you ask your boss for a pay rise? It’s a
bit daunting isn’t it? Well, say the boss agrees. How do you feel now about
going back and asking for a little more, maybe £10 more? Probably most people
would feel content to have got the boss to say “yes” to the first pay increase.
To ask for more straight away feels like pushing your luck.
But
Abraham is not embarrassed by persistence. “Would you withdraw your hand of
judgement if there were 50 good people in that city? What about 45? And 40?
Would you relent if there were just 30? Or 20 then? What if you could only find
10?”
Tragically,
there weren’t even 10. Genesis 19.4 tells you how many in the city were
corrupted by evil. “Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of
the city - both young and old – surrounded the house.” There wasn’t even one, let alone ten.
But
of course Abraham doesn’t know that in chapter 18. And this isn’t about his pay
packet. This is about people. It’s about people living or dying. Six times
Abraham asks God to spare the city.
And
it’s an encounter. If we go back to 18.1 it says “the Lord came to Abraham.” In
v33 it says “he left Abraham.” So there was a coming together. I find in my own
life there are times when I just seem to go through the motions, sometimes it
feels like speaking to the walls or to the ceiling. In church or in a group it can
sometimes feel like a performance. Sometimes I find that I’m not in gear
spiritually and I am not really seeking God at all. It is more an exercise than
an encounter. But Abraham really seemed to actually meet with God. Oh that our
prayers would be an encounter with the living God!
What Happened to
Sodom?
Well,
we know the story. Lot and his family escaped. Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t. Fire
from heaven totally destroyed those cities and they have never been traced - until
the last decade. For 3,500 years this place was undiscovered, no one knew where
it was, but very recent archaeological digs have possibly located them at last.
Sodom
was said to be the largest city east of Kikkar. So archaeologists came to
the conclusion that if they were to locate it, their best chance was to start
with the biggest archaeological mound around the Dead Sea. And they decided in
the end that the prime site was in a location called Tall el-Hamaam, and they
started digging there in 2005. They soon found the remains of a city that was
inhabited between 3,500BC and 1,540 BC – and that brings us to the time of
Abraham.
Steven
Collins of Trinity Southwestern University in New Mexico led the project
alongside Hussein el-Jarrah from the Jordanian government’s Department of
Antiquities. Collins personally supervised over ten years of excavations at the
site. They uncovered many things of interest like defences and ramparts, including
evidence of a 5 metre thick and 10 metre high city wall. That would definitely
correspond with a settlement of the stature of Sodom. They found plazas
connected by roads; clearly it was a substantial city. In fact, it was about
ten times larger than any other Middle Bronze Age settlement ever before
discovered in the region.
The
location is of a thriving city because of its location by the River Jordan and
on major trade routes - which is how Sodom is described in the Bible.
Revealingly,
this particular city seems to have been suddenly abandoned in mysterious
circumstances at the end of the Bronze Age – Abraham’s time. It seems the site
became uninhabited after a major trauma.
I
have to say in all honesty that different experts have come to differing conclusions,
but the team that led the project is convinced what they have found is ancient Sodom.
I watched a documentary on the Yesterday Channel last year which weighed the
evidence for and against Tall el-Hammam being the location for what we read
about in Genesis 18-19.
The
thing I found most interesting was a pottery fragment that they found within an
ash layer, and the fragment has an unusual -indeed unique- glazed appearance.
The thing is, ceramic glazing has never been found on pottery until 1,000 years
after the date of that fragment. Laboratory analysis shows that it was exposed
to extremely high temperatures, a level that far exceeds that normally used to
fire any pottery, ancient or modern.
Was
it glazed during the catastrophic demise of the city? Well, again I must say that
different experts interpret the evidence in different ways, but it is very possible
that we are living in the generation that has discovered Sodom and evidence of
its devastating, sudden demise.
Whether
they’ve found it or not, the important thing is what Jude says in the New Testament;
v7: “Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns” he says, “gave themselves up
[note that expression – they surrendered,
they capitulated, they just caved in] to sexual immorality and perversion.
They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.”
That is a serious thing to say.
Ending
Some
preachers you listen to can’t stop talking about God’s justice. They go on and
on about judgement and hell fire and brimstone. Every Sunday it’s the same
angry rant. Everything’s wrong with the world - and it’s all getting worse -
and God is very ticked off with everyone.
Other
preachers you listen to can’t stop talking about God’s mercy. Every Sunday it’s
the spiritual equivalent of My Little Pony. They go on and on about how nice God
is, his grace and blessing, and how he just wants to give everyone a hug, a
high five and a free ice cream.
Guess
who has the biggest congregations by the way…
In
Genesis 18 and 19 you get both God’s justice and his mercy in perfect balance. And
unless a preacher tells you about God’s mercy; his overflowing kindness and
amazing love for sinners and God’s
justice; his settled opposition to sin and his resolve to deal with it – don’t give
them the time of day.
One
day a dying man wrote a letter to Billy Graham. This is what it said; “I turned
my back on God over 60 years ago, while I was still in my teens. Now I'm old
and dying, and I wish I'd taken a different road. Tell young people not to do
what I did. I was a fool, but it's too late for me now.”
And
this is how he replied; “Thank you for your letter. When we're young, we often
don't realize how life-changing our decisions may be - for good or for evil.
Only as we grow older do we begin to see it, and that's especially true for
someone in your position.
The
Bible speaks of the terrible consequences that await those who “did not choose
to fear the Lord” (Proverbs 1.29). But it is not too late for you to turn to
God! Yes, your life would have been very different (and much happier) if you
had given your life to Christ when you had the opportunity many years ago. But
why enter eternity separated from God and his blessings if you don't have to?
God
loves you, in spite of the way you've treated him. If you had been the only
person on earth who needed it, Jesus would still have gone to the cross and
died for you. God loves you that much! Right now, God is speaking to you and
giving you a second chance to turn to Christ. Don't make the same mistake you
did over 60 years ago. The Bible says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near”. In a prayer of faith confess your sins to God
and commit your life to Jesus Christ. You cannot change the past, but he can
change your future.”
What
a great reply!
In
dying on that cross, Jesus took us off spiritual Death Row and he willingly took
the full punishment for sin on himself.
There
doesn’t need to be another Sodom and Gomorrah on Stockton or anywhere else
because the punishment for the sins of the world - all of them - was visited on
Jesus. The darkness, the agony, the thirst, the heat and the loneliness, the
shame – he took it all.
Bless
his name, let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 7 February 2016
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