Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. Tonight is study #15 of Genesis, chapter 19. I am going to read Genesis 19:9-11:
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. But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door.
This historical passage is getting interesting. The situation is that Lot went out and tried to reason with the men of Sodom. They could not be reasoned with, just as we could say of the people of the world today, as we cannot reason them out of their sinful pursuits. We cannot reason with them, especially by reasoning out of the Scriptures to convince them that they are doing wrong, just as Lot attempted to do when he said, “My brethren, do not so wickedly.” This also applies to those in the churches and congregations because they were given up by God and Satan was instilled as the ruler of the churches during the Great Tribulation. We saw that the churches ran after all kinds of “other gospels.” There was no reasoning with them. God’s elect tried to do so, again, and again, as a church would bring a teaching that was contrary to the Bible. An elect child of God would approach the elder or pastor after the message and they would say, “But what about this passage? Or, that passage?” We would present verses that would clearly not permit the teaching the church was pursuing, but they would not accept it.
It is too late now, and we should get it out of our minds. For the churches, it is way too late. Not only is the church age over but the 23-year judgment upon them has been completed. We are past that point. It is over and done with and God has moved on to the Day of Judgment upon the world and all the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. There is no returning. So, there is no point to try to reason with the churches concerning their doctrines today. They are a desolate wilderness and they will remain that way for the rest of time, until God destroys this world in complete annihilation on the last day. There is no sense to try to reason with the unsaved people of the world to try to convince them not to abort children or to become involved in homosexual marriage, and so forth. All efforts would be in vain because God has given man up to their sins, according to Romans, chapter 1 and He has allowed mankind to go after their sins; and there will be no turning about to follow the law written on their hearts or the Law of the Bible. Only God’s elect people will follow the Law of God, the Bible. Only God’s elect will desire to keep God’s commandments today.
Again, it says in Genesis 19:9:
… And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
The word “pressed” is the same word we found back in verse 3, referring to Lot, in Genesis 19:3:
And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast…
Remember, the two messengers were God and they wanted to stay in the street all night, but Lot would not have it so; and he pressed upon them greatly. He would not take, “No,” for an answer. We can see why because the men of Sodom then compassed the house round. Imagine if there had not been the protection of a house and they would have found these two men in the streets. It would not have gone well. In Revelation 11, the two witnesses lay dead in the streets.
In one place this word translated as “pressed” is translated as “stubbornly.” It is someone that will not take, “No,” for an answer – he is insistent. This is the case in verse 9, but here it is referring to the men of Sodom. Again, it said in Genesis 19:9:
… And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.
Lot was outside his house and he shut the door after him, so his back was to the door and all these men were in front of him and they had just said, “This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them.” I believe the word “worse” is a word that means evil; they intended to do evil to him. Remember, Lot had said, “Do not so wickedly,” or do not do evil against the two men, but the men of Sodom replied, “Then we will do evil with thee, and more evil than with them.” And they pressed sore upon the man, Lot. So, they came close to him and forced Lot to back up against his own door. Pressure was building upon Lot. Historically, the men were pressing against him.
If you have ever traveled in a crowded subway system, like Tokyo, which is a huge city, or New York City and it is “rush hour,” you get on the train and everyone is forcing their way on the train; there are no more seats and it is jam-packed with people. That is the idea here. These men were crowding Lot to the point that forced him back against his own door, putting pressure on the door. God said, “And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.”
Historically, we see the picture. It is an angry mob and Lot is in trouble and the door is almost breaking. But, again, in the Bible things have spiritual meaning and a “door” is a very important symbol in the Bible. Jesus said in John 10:7-9:
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
Jesus says that He is the “door.” This is a classic example of how God defines His own spiritual terms in the Bible. He will take a word like “tree” or “water” or “gold” and there will be a defining verse that will relate the object to something else. For example, we read, “The wicked are like the troubled sea,” and we see that the wicked are equated to a troubled sea. Or, we read, “for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ,” and we see that Christ is likened to a “rock.” When God does this, it allows us to search the Bible and when we see the word “door,” we must consider whether it is possible that God is not speaking of a literal, physical door, but He is speaking of the door to heaven. Christ is the door to heaven. When Christ said He was a “door,” He was not saying He was a literal door, was He? He is not made of wood or steel and He does not have hinges or a knob. Christ said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” So, entering that “door” is not entering a physical house or room, but Jesus is talking about the spiritual entrance into the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. Christ is the only way, according to John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” He was the portal or the entry point for accursed sinners living in a cursed world and subject to the wrath of God and eternal death. When sinners entered into salvation, they were no longer cursed. They had the promise of a new heaven and new earth. They have eternal life and will never die. It was all through Christ. It was accomplished through Him and this is the point Christ made: “by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.”
This is the significance of a “door” in the Bible. It has to do with experiencing salvation. If you entered in, it meant you were saved. We saw that earlier in the book of Genesis in the flood account. After God commanded Noah and his family (eight souls) and the animals to board the ark, it said in Genesis 7:11-13:
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
The ark pictured the kingdom of God. It pictured the safety and security in Christ. It really pictured Christ Himself. Then it went on to say in Genesis 7:14-16:
They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and JEHOVAH shut him in.
God established a period of 120 years when the ark was being built. Then it was finished, and God said, “And yet seven days,” and He would bring the flood waters upon the earth. So, there were seven days that we understand that God relates spiritually to a day being “as a thousand years.” At the completion of seven days, everyone that was predestinated came into the ark. God had already named the eight souls back in Genesis 6:18. Before Noah built the ark, God had said that Noah and his family would be the ones that would enter in. Then history unfolded, and Noah and his family were the only ones that entered in. They typified the elect. They entered into the ark on the day God signified, after the seven days, on “the seventeenth day of the second month.” We cannot overemphasize that 7,000 years after the flood date of 4990 B.C. was May 21, 2011, which had the underlying Hebrew calendar date of “the seventeenth day of the second month,” the exact date Noah and his family entered the ark and God shut him in. God shut the door. Christ is the “door” and all that enter in by Him are saved.
Since entry into the door points to entry into the kingdom of God (or salvation), what would a shut door point to?
We will look at that a little later, but right now in Genesis 19 we see that as the men pressed sore upon Lot, they came near to break the “door.” Again, we can see the force they were using to enter the house, and this would identify with trying to “force” salvation or taking salvation upon themselves: “We do not need God to open the door. Even if God shuts the door, we will force our way in. We will ‘know’ God and experience eternal life by our own works of accepting Him and walking down the aisle to be baptized or by whatever way we determine. We will bring ourselves into the kingdom of God. We do not need God to save us. We do not need God to do all the work when it comes to entering heaven – we will do the work.”
Spiritually, this is what was behind the action of the men of Sodom and, yet, it accomplished nothing except to almost break the “door.” In other words, if man could possibly break their way through the “door” to the kingdom of heaven, which is Christ, they would. If man could distort, pervert or do harm to the Word, they would. And they certainly have done that, have they not? The publishers of Bibles have done that by distorting the true and faithful Word of God in the Hebrew and Greek. They have Bibles for women, Bibles for gays and Bibles for teens. There are Bibles for the “modern” reader and they change the words, left and right, and it does not matter if it matches to the original text. That is insignificant to them. They change the true teachings of the Word of God in doctrine, after doctrine.
It is so bad that if it were possible for man to do damage to the only way into heaven, he would have done so and ruined the entrance to heaven for everyone, even for the God’s elect.
Mankind can come “near to break the door,” as it says in Genesis 19:9: “And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door.” And we certainly see that man is ruining the Word of God to the point of no return and, yet, God is in control of that “door” and its openings and closings. God is the one who was in control in bringing in those He determined to bring in and keeping out those He determined to keep out. Man cannot resist the will of God on that point, so God had the final say, despite man’s insistence to the contrary.
Then the next verse refers to the “two messengers,” who were God, as it goes on to say in Genesis 19:10:
But the men put forth their hand…
Notice how it spoke of men (plural), but hand was singular. Should it not say that the men put forth their hands? No – because it is one God or “El-o-heem,” which is the plural name for God. God is one God who reveals Himself as three Persons. Again, it says in Genesis 19:10:
But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door.
God shut the door.
We do not have time in this study to go over the ramifications and the terrible significance of that statement. But, Lord willing, when we get together in our next Bible study we will pick up with God shutting the door. And we will see that this is God’s sovereign right. He is King of kings and Lord of lords and He makes the decrees regarding His salvation program and the opening and shutting of the door of heaven.