Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #7 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are going to read, again, Genesis 19:1-3:
And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant’s house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.
We have been taking our time to carefully look at this passage to consider the spiritual dimension and what God is teaching in the spiritual realm. We saw that the gate of Sodom identified with the Bible, the point of contact between God and His people. Lot was sitting in the gate because he was a watchman sitting in the gate to see what God would say unto him.
There is a lot going on in these few verses. There is a lot of spiritual information that God is revealing to us. He has spoken these things and the revelation of the spiritual information happens when the people of God dig into the Bible, comparing Scripture with Scripture. Then, according to the will and grace of God, He opens our eyes to behold wondrous things out of His Law – spiritual truth.
We have seen that this passage has to do with the end of time and with Judgment Day and with God coming to visit in judgment and granting His people (as typified by righteous Lot) the ability to discern or know both time and judgment, because His people are keeping watch. The rest of the inhabitants of the city were not keeping watch.
We have also seen that in a few places Sodom ties in to the nation of Israel and, in turn, to the New Testament corporate church, which national Israel typified. None of the people of Sodom were maintaining a watch at the gate. It appears they had forsaken it and only Lot was in the gate.
Lot was at the gate and he beheld two angels or two messengers and these men are strangers to Lot. He does not know them. Of course, it was God and Lot knows God, but God was appearing in the form of two messengers that were strangers to the city of Sodom and strangers to Lot. And, yet, Lot was very open and eager to take care of the needs of these strangers. We will look at this a little bit later because there is another spiritual angle involved that concerns Lot meeting the needs of strangers in relationship to what the Bible has to say about that.
In our last study, we were discussing the word “street.” The two messengers wanted to stay in the street when Lot urged them to come into his house: “Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.”& Then it said in Genesis 19:3:
And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house…
The word “pressed” is used in this verse, as well as in verse 9. It says in Genesis 19:9:
And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
It is the same word. They “pressed” sore upon Lot, even to the point of breaking the door. It would appear it was more of a literal pressing. They were coming close bodily and we know this was so because they almost broke the door; you do not almost break a door by being insistent only with your words or attitude. They were literally pressing against Lot, who had his back against the door, and they were putting pressure upon him and the door to the point of the door almost breaking.
We also want to note that in verse 9 the people of Sodom identified Lot as a stranger. They said, “This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.” A sojourner is a stranger or traveler. He was not a native. He was not born in Sodom and he did not grow up in Sodom. We know that because we went through the earlier chapters of Genesis and Lot had come from Haran with his relative Abram. They dwelt together in the land of Canaan for a time, but their herdsmen were striving with one another because the land was not big enough for both. Finally, they decided to split up and Lot headed for Sodom and sojourned there, but Abram went the opposite direction. So, Lot was a sojourner, too, and a stranger. This helps us to understand his concern for strangers and how they were treated because he was a stranger in the city.
In our last study, we looked at the word “street” and we went to Proverbs, chapter 1. Let us go back there. It says in Proverbs 1:20:
Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:
We saw that wisdom identifies with Christ and Christ identifies with the Word of God, the Bible. Wisdom speaks and utters her voice in the streets and that is why the two messengers (God) wanted to stay in the street: “Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.”
The idea that the Word of God has to do with the street is also shown in Luke 13:24-27:
Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.
This very important passage has to do with Judgment Day, the time when God shut the door of heaven. For our purpose in this study, we are concerned with the reaction of those that were shut out of heaven when God shut the door on May 21, 2011, the beginning of Judgment Day and the time in which we currently live. They respond to the shutting of the door by saying, “Lord, Lord, open unto us.” Then the Lord said, “I know you not whence ye are.” Their response is, “We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.” In other words, these people are professed Christians. It was within the churches and congregations that Christ had taught, just as we saw in the spiritual picture in Revelation 11 regarding the two witnesses. The two witnesses picture the Word of God or “the law and the prophets.” They had prophesied for 1290 days, which points to “three and one half years,” representing the course of the New Testament church age. But upon the loosing of Satan, they were overcome and slain and their dead bodies lay in the street of that great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt.
You see, the Word of God went forth: “Thou hast taught in our streets.” But now it was the beginning of the Great Tribulation and the Word of God was laying dead in the street. Luke 13 is speaking of another time and season, the conclusion of the Great Tribulation, which was at the end of that 23-year period, and then the door was shut; and these people are saying that Christ “hast taught in our streets,” which is past tense. That does not mean anything to God, so He responded, “I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.” Once God shuts the door (whether it be the shut door within the churches or the shut door for the entire world in Judgment Day), the door stays shut. God will never open the door that He has shut. Of course, if God will not open it, it is certain that no man can open it. What God has shut, no man can open. It is an impossibility.
Also, in Luke 14 we find the word “street.” It says in Luke 14:16-21:
Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
That is, send forth Gospel into the world and bring in the elect, typified by the poor, the maimed, the halt and the blind. Bring them in to the “supper” of the kingdom of heaven. Again, the Gospel went forth into the streets. Let us look at one more example in Acts 5:14-15:
And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.) Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.
You see, Peter was passing by. God had blessed him in his work to prove the Gospel and the power of God as the churches were being established and, therefore, the disciples had power to perform miracles of healing for a short time and the sick were gathered into the streets. It was in the streets that they might be healed, which points to experiencing salvation.
Again, it was in the streets and, therefore, the two messengers in Genesis 19 wanted to abide in the streets. It was “normative” as the place where the Gospel went forth. But it was no longer the case is Sodom, as a picture of the end-time church after the Spirit of God had departed out and the two witnesses were dead in the streets. If the true and faithful Word of God is published when Satan is loosed at the time of the end to bring judgment on the churches, there can be no further blessing. There would not be any healing of the sin-sick soul. The poor, the maimed, the sick and the blind would no longer be brought in to the kingdom of God because the two witnesses, or the witness of the Bible, had come to an end. They were dead in the streets and there could be no more salvation.
Going back to Genesis 19, Lot was positioned in the gate and he was concerned for the safety of the two messengers. The idea is that the people of God were concerned for the integrity, nobility and the glorious nature of the Word of God, the Bible, within the corrupt and apostate church. That was Lot’s concern in wanting to safeguard these two messengers. In other words, it is as though God’s elect are greatly concerned for the true doctrines and teachings of the Bible and the holiness and glorious nature of the faithful teachings of the Word of God. We were very concerned because the churches were despising these things. They were disdainful of doctrines such as election and the truth of the way that God saves sinners. They trod underfoot the wonderful teachings of the Word of God, the Bible. They minimized them and dismissed them and pushed them away. Instead, they were inclined to their spiritual “high places” that were part of the traditions of the corporate church. They more highly esteemed the teaching of a Reformed theologian over what the Bible said.
Even more terrible, they lusted with “one eye” upon the world. God raised up a phenomenon, like speaking in tongues, and it became an end-time testing program for the churches and congregations. The pastors, elders and deacons, as well as all the people, were running after “another gospel.” They were expanding the Gospel from the written Word, the Bible, to other divine revelation like tongues and visions and all the charismatic leanings. The elect people of God, as typified by Lot, were concerned about the Word of God during the Great Tribulation when many of us were still in the churches. From that time, the churches rapidly went astray, and it did not matter if deacons and elders were the husband of one wife and raised their children well. There were divorced men and single men. It did not matter if the rulers of the congregations were men or women, as they began to put women in positions of leadership. It was all an assault upon God’s two witnesses, the Law and the prophets. They had slain the two witnesses to the point where there was no “life” in the Bible, but God’s elect were still there for a period of time and we were greatly concerned. We were trying to protect the integrity of the Bible and safeguard it from the assault against it. But, of course, we could not do that very successfully, but that was Lot’s concern as he took the two messengers into his house.
Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study, we will look more at the idea that Lot was taking in “strangers” and we will consider that aspect of this historical parable.