Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #8 of Genesis, chapter 19. We are continuing to read 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.

In our last study we were discussing this interesting historical parable. We saw that it has everything to do with the meeting point of God and His elect, the righteous. The meeting point is the doorway between heaven and earth, which is the Bible. Lot was keeping watch. He was at the gate of the city of Sodom. He was all by himself. We understood this to mean that only God’s people truly keep watch in the Word of God, the Bible. The unsaved of the world fail to sit at the gate and this includes the unsaved people that now (totally) populate the churches. This is why none of the people of the city of Sodom were sitting in the gate of the city, historically. That wicked city is like this wicked world and the unsaved people of the world, including those that populate the congregations, do not truly keep watch in the Word of God. They are not searching the Scriptures and checking out everything they read. Instead, they are very superficially and casually studying the Bible.

I mentioned at the end of the last study that there was another aspect we wanted to look at regarding this meeting between Lot and the two angels or two messengers. It has to do with an interesting statement that is made in the New Testament in the book of Hebrews. It says in Hebrews 13:1-2:

Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

We know that the two messengers that came to Sodom are called “two angels” in the King James version. And it was the same method of translation that was used in the New Testament regarding the word translated as “messenger” or “angel.” The King James translators often translated the word as “angel,” rather than “messenger” in both the Old Testament and New Testament. So, here in Hebrews, we are reminded not to forget to entertain strangers, because some that have done so have entertained “angels” or “messengers” unawares.

That was the case with Lot as he sat in the gate. He saw two men approaching the city and they came to the gate and Lot was willing and desirous to lodge them or “entertain” them. The word “entertain” is a word that has lost its original meaning over time. Now when we think of entertainment, we think of things that amuse us and the world has gone after this type of entertainment. But just a few decades ago, if people had guests in their home they might use language like, “We are entertaining some people in our home tonight. We are having guests over to our house for dinner.” They would serve them food and converse with them and this was the idea behind entertaining guests – it had to do with hospitality. In Hebrew 13:2, the Greek word translated as “entertain” is Strong’s #5381 and it is translated as “hospitality” in 1Peter 4:8-9:

And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging.

Use “hospitality” or “entertain” one to another without grudging. It is the idea of being hospitable. The world has its idea about what hospitality is and it has to do with being friendly and welcoming people in to your home. Of course, the Biblical definition differs from the world’s definition. Biblical “hospitality” involves sharing the Word of God. It involves ministering the Word of God. That is the reason I read verse 8, which speaks of having fervent charity among yourselves, “for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” And charity is love. Then it immediately speaks of “hospitality.” The primary way we can love others is desiring the very best for them. The “very best” we could wish for others is salvation and we would desire that everyone would be saved. In the day of salvation when God was still saving His elect people, it motivated the true elect children of God to go forth with the Gospel wherever we could, whether it was to foreign lands or on the local street corners. We desired to share the Word of God because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It was our desire that people would hear and become saved – that was loving our neighbor. It showed fervent charity for one another.

Of course, it is a different matter today because it is the Day of Judgment. At this time, salvation is no longer possible and, yet, we still desire the very best for others – that God may have saved them. We can pray, “Having had mercy, have mercy on this individual.” People in the churches had no possibility of being saved if they stayed in the churches throughout the Latter Rain, but we could pray, “Oh, Father, may the cup of God’s wrath pass from this individual.” We also desire the very best for people by sharing the Word of God to feed God’s sheep and we can hope that this person or that person could be a child of God. We could give someone a tract with that kind of mindset and we would be showing our love to that individual. It would be showing hospitality to that person without grudging, as it said in 1Peter 4:9.

The word “hospitality” that was translated as “entertained” in Hebrews 13:2 is Strong’s #5382, but it is derived from two different Greek words. It is a compound word. One of the words is Strong’s #5384 and it is a word translated as “friend.” It is pronounced “fee-los.” The other word is Strong’s #3581 and it is the word for “stranger.” So, literally, these two words together would mean “friend of stranger” or “friend of strangers.” It is what it means to be “hospitable” or to “entertain” messengers unawares. In the day of salvation, we would not have known if a person was one of God’s elect, but we would bring the Gospel to them anyway. And if they were one of God’s elect, what would happen according to what Jesus told Nathaniel in John, chapter 1? They would be lifted up and exalted into heaven, as it says in John 1:51:

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Here, it uses the word “angels,” but it is the same word “angelos,” and it is speaking of someone that becomes saved. They are immediately translated into the heavenlies to be seated with Christ Jesus and then instantly dispatched back to earth as a messenger of God to carry the Gospel to others. It is just like the messengers that visited Lot in his affliction. It is just like when we would hand someone a tract and we “entertained strangers unawares.”

Again, we never knew who was elect when we are sharing the Bible during the day of salvation. I continually must remind people that this applies only to the day of salvation. I would not want anyone that might see or hear a portion of a Bible study and to get the idea that God is still saving people when He is no longer saving. No - this is a different time and season. The day of salvation was a past “time and season” when a person could hear the Word of God, the Bible, and God could bless it. We would share with 100 people or 1,000 people. If we went on tract trips, we might hand out thousands of tracts. We would have no way of knowing who God might save, so we were sharing with strangers unawares. We entertained messengers unawares on occasion.

Let us look at one place where the word “strangers” (a part of the compound translated as “hospitality”) is found, in Hebrews 11 where it refers to people of faith, like Abraham and Sara. It says in Hebrews 11:13:

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

This is the spiritual situation of God’s people in the world. Lot was a “stranger,” was he not? Remember it said in Genesis 19:9: “This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge.” You see, Lot was not one of them – he was an outsider or a stranger. He was not truly a citizen of the city of Sodom. He was a sojourner that had entered their city and became part of the city, but they always remembered him as being a stranger.

That is always how it is when God saves one of His elect that were predestinated to salvation before the foundation of the world and for whom Christ died before the foundation of the world. And, yet, we are born into the world “unclean” because you cannot bring the clean out of the unclean, unless God happened to save a person in the womb, like He did with John the Baptist. (I do not feel that was a common occurrence.) For the most part, we are born into the world unclean and still in our sins and we live a portion of our lives as children of wrath, even as others. We were part of the world, the kingdom of Satan, and we had acceptance with all our fellow dungeon mates. There was no problem on a very important level because they accepted us as a citizen of the world and we were natural-minded as they are. Of course, there are conflicts and some people do not get along with others in the world, but on the level of being natural-minded, there is agreement and full acceptance. We were not a stranger, it could be said, because we were like them. We were all children of wrath in our sinful condition. But the moment God saved a sinner, He translated him out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of His Dear Son. Then our citizenship is in heaven and we are part of the kingdom of God and we have a new heart and a new spirit that is very different from all the unsaved people of the world. They have spiritually dead souls. So, when a child of God enters in to the company of the world, it is like bringing a shining light into the darkness. It is a candlestick shining in the dark and it cannot be hid. The people of the world observe and notice and they see a difference. We are a stranger to them. We are not like them. We do not fit in any more. They recognize there is something different about us. We are peculiar and strange to them. When they see that we are reading the Bible and talking about the Bible, then they understand and there begins the separation process. We no longer fit in with the world.

By the way, that is a wonderful thing because the Lord Jesus Christ has taken us out of the world, so to speak. We are no longer a part of the world. Our love is not to the world and our devotion is not to the things of the world. We have love and devotion to God and the things of God, like the Word of God, the Bible.

You see, this is underlying the reason that God speaks so highly of strangers in the Bible and the reason He gives us commandments to use hospitality and to entertain them. It says in Exodus 23:9:

Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Egypt is a figure of the world and this verse refers to the people of Israel and the fact they had been in bondage in Egypt. They were different than the Egyptians. They were another race. They were another people. So, God was reminding them not to oppress a stranger because they know the heart of a stranger because they were strangers in the land of Egypt.

This mindset undergirds the elect children of God and their strong desire to bring the Word of God to the world; that is, to bring the Word to “strangers.” Was that not what we did when we went to visit the people in Japan or Brazil or Bolivia, or wherever we went with the Word of God, the Bible? We did not know these people, although we may have run in to someone we knew occasionally. However, for the most part, they were strangers. They were people we had never met before and would probably never see again. It was the same mindset that was behind the sending forth of the true Gospel through the ministry of Family Radio when Mr. Camping was well and when God was blessing His Word to save the great multitude before the door was shut. God’s people banded together to send forth the radio signal and later through the internet and electronic medium. But it was done especially through the radio signals that went out to mainland China through Radio Taiwan or to South America through short wave or to Africa, the United States and to almost all the world. Who was that radio signal going to reach? It would be almost entirely “strangers” that would receive the signal and hear the Word of God and God could bless His Word to their hearts. He could save this one and that one and all the people whose names were written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, until all became saved. Primarily, the plan was to reach out with the Word of God to strangers or people we did not know. We did that in that time and now we desire to reach out at this time with the Word of God to feed God’s sheep, the elect. They are part of the family of God, but we do not know most of them and, in that sense, they are still strangers to us. But we desire to do these things because we have the heart of a stranger – we had been a stranger in a strange land. We are typified by Lot, who was sitting in the gate of Sodom. And he was more than willing to take these men into his own home and feed them, lodge them for the night and protect them, and so forth. We can see the attitude of the heart of God’s people as Lot does this, historically. It is a picture of how the people of God have shared the Word of God all through the history of the world.

Lord willing, when we get together in our next study we are going to look at a couple of things in verse 3 where it says, “the men of Sodom compassed the house round,” after Lot brought the two messengers into his house. That is a curious statement that is full of spiritual meaning.