Genesis Part 36.5 | Pastor Paul McGee

Amen. The Apostle Paul writes the New

Testament of an experience of the presence of the Lord.

It's so impacting to him. He said whether in the body or

out of the body, he said it really couldn't tell.

He says taken up to the 3rd heaven.

It's the way that he described it, only way that he could couch

the presence of the Lord, that he had experienced a man in

those particular terms. Maybe it was just so

overwhelming to him. Just a few announcements here

tonight, the 25th. This Friday is game night from

7:00 to 10:00. I am assuming most of us will

probably want to game inside with the heat.

That's going on. Also then just kind of a outlook

looking in the month of August, just remember August the 7th,

that first Thursday will be power hour here at the church at

7:00 to 8:00. Also there will be the Friday

and Saturday, August the 22nd and 23rd is Women's spree.

Pardon me, Women's Spree conference in Indianapolis sheet

and Sister me, he needs to know by Sunday if you are going or

not. The 5th Sunday of August will be

guest speaker. Pastor Anthony Wilkes will be

here with us on that 5th Sunday. And then just forecast a little

bit further, in September on Grandparents Day, we'll have

Pastor David or Bishop David Sizemore and Sister Vicki

Seisman will be here. And then on the 12th of

September is a night of Worth. We did a long time ago.

We were scheduled to do it around Covic and everything fell

apart. Well, we're back on the calendar

night of worth with an addiction focus.

We'll have our Police Department here.

We'll have a doctor, Tony Frederick here, and we'll have a

sister, Stephanie Hughes here, Amen, Sharing her testimony and

her experience and so on and so forth.

And so please get that out there.

That night of work will be taking place on September the

12th, Amen. It is a community pool for an

event, Amen. So and so forth.

So please just keep that in mind.

Start talking about it among your friends, your neighbors,

your friends, your enemies, whoever talk about it, Amen.

In time past, years ago, we had good success with it, Amen.

Within our community. We had good support from our

community too as a result of it. Because we live in an area that

addiction or drugs of that matter is a problem.

And as a matter of fact, when we had that night of work where our

Police Department were going to allow them time to kind of give

us a little bit of touch of the proliferation of that within our

area so that we understand where we're at, so on and so forth.

So it should be a good night. Amen.

Amen. Genesis chapter 19.

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

Genesis chapter 19. You're probably wonderful we'll

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

ever get out of Genesis 19, but we've had other stuff

interspersed in between here. But we're almost entering into

chapter 20, which means we're 2/5 of the way through the book

of Genesis, 2/5 of the way. Now let me give you the hope of

this. This is like Trevor's listed

this tonight as part 36.5 because I didn't finish my

lesson up last week. But in essence, whenever I did

the book of John, which is 21 chapters, it took me 60 parts.

So I'm already doing better than what I was with the Gospel of

John. So to give you hope, Amen.

But not hope. But The thing is, I hope we

learned something. Surely we can say over the past

36 lessons that maybe we've learned something, maybe that we

haven't learned before. A little understanding has been

granted that we haven't had before.

Amen. So I'm going to read Genesis

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

chapter 19. I'm going to start with verse

#12 and I'm going to read the same set in the Scripture that I

read last week. I'll probably just read, maybe,

I don't know, 3 verses. And I'll be kind to you, and

I'll let you be seated and I'll pray.

Amen. Starting with verse #12 And the

Bible says, the men said in the lot, Hast thou here any besides

son-in-law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, And whatsoever

thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place, for we

will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxing great

before the face of the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy

it. And lot went out spake unto his

sons in law, which married his daughters, and said up, Get you

out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.

But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons in law.

I'll pause there again. My titles remains the same from

last week. Lead well or lose much.

All right, we're continue with that.

We'll pray here tonight. Father, I thank you God for your

spirit. I thank you, Lord Jesus, for us

to being able to come together, center our lives around your

word. I pray, O God, that you have to

help us in the next little while.

God enlighten us and help us. The Lord Jesus grant us

understanding God, where we can apply this to the Lord Jesus, to

ourselves. God, that we could grow thereby

will not fail to thank you, Lord, for what you do.

In the lovely name of Jesus Christ, I pray, Amen.

You may be seated, so I'll continue on now with verse #15.

And when the morning arose, then the angels hastened a lot,

saying, Arise, take thy wife and thy two daughters which are

here, lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city.

And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and

upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two

daughters, the Lord being merciful unto him.

And they brought him forth, and set him without the city.

And it came to pass, when they had brought them forth abroad,

that he said, Escape for thy life.

Look not behind thee, neither stay thou on all the plane.

Escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

And Lot said unto them, Oh not so, my Lord, that's interesting

statement. Behold, now thy servant have

found grace, and thy sight he acknowledges that thou has

magnified thy mercy, which thou eschewed unto me, and saving my

life. And I cannot escape to the

mountain unless some evil take me, and I die.

Behold, now this city is near to flee in two, and it is a little

10 Let me escape thither, Is it not a little one?

And my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I

have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not

overthrow this city. For that which thou has spoken

haste thee escape thither. For I cannot do anything till

thou become thither. Therefore the name of the city

was called Zoar. The sun was risen up on the

earth when Lot entered into Zoar.

I'm just going to do just a real quick recap of last week.

OK, real quick, real quick. Last week we started talking

about how really the weight of a what much is happening here in

Genesis chapter 19 is the weight of headship of of Lot being the

Genesis 19 · chapter mention

man and the spiritual guide and head of his family, both

culturally and spiritually. And how with that there were

some responsibilities that he had.

And one of those was leading his family right in the past that

they should go and ought to go. Remember, Abraham, God knew

would command his children well, but God has some a little

skeptical about lot in the way that he has led his family thus

far because a lot of his choices have brought them to where they

presently are, in a city full of wickedness and lewdness and on

the verge of being destroyed. And so we also talked about law

in his life, how he had some blurred convictions.

It seems like on one hand, he's doing really well.

He's kept and conversation at least, and somehow influenced

that his daughters are still virgins.

But on the other hand, he's allowed them to be betrothed to

men of the city of Sodom, which seems to be a little, you know,

repulsive as far as these two aspects of positive and

negative, you know, happening here.

They're repulsing. He seems to get some things

right and the things he don't get so right.

And that seems to be Lot's life. You see that on one side we can

applaud him. On the other side is the Boo

hiss you know on Lot. Has these blurred convictions

but his blurred convictions don't just stay with him, right?

Because he's the leader of his family.

That's going to permeate, that's going to distill down into his

family and those that are under his care.

And we talked about various individuals like Aiken, how his

choices that he may take into the accursed thing cost him his

things and his family and burned and all those things being

destroyed and how that had impact.

And So what Lot does in his life, then we're just looking at

that this has the impact in on his family.

And that there was a call really from God in this, that there was

an urgency then for separation or urgency for separation from

Sodom. That there was some recognition

that Lot the way that he his makeup, the way that his motives

and mindset was he was not going to successfully live in Sodom

and still remain separate from Sodom Blood's only answer was to

totally disengage him and his family from Sodom for success.

We looked at other places in Scripture where the Bible talks

about in Jesus high priestly prayer of John 17 talking to us

about leave my disciples in the world.

Don't take them out of the world.

They're not of the world sanctifying through thy truth,

thy word is truth and all these things of what would be set up

for success for his disciples in the world.

Amen. And that they could succeed in

doing so. And I even make mention, and I

think it might have been toward the closing that I believe that

maybe Locke could have had. He had those motives and those

attitudes and had things more firmed up, if you will, in his

wherewithal about being close to God and under the subjection of

God. Because when we talk about the

headship of the family, that's really derived from the man

being in his right position where he needs to be under his

authority to God, right? It all flows down him having his

position under Christ, his wife having her position under him,

the children having their position under them.

And whenever any one of those is out of alignment, the authority

of the high power of God that all should be submitted to is

disrupted. Amen.

And so that's, that's another topic for another day.

And I don't need to get into all of that.

But we talked about those things.

We talked about then that separation, even in our real

lives, we looked at some New Testament scriptures of Romans

and Corinthians, and we talked about how separation or

sanctification many times is a putting off and a putting on,

right? It's, it's not just leaving the

void of what you take off, but it's bringing something else

into that that's godly and righteous and, and separation

unto the Lord and a putting on of things.

We talked, talked about all those things that that light and

darkness don't fellowship. There's no Concorde, there's no

harmony between certain things. We talked about the yokes and

the going in circles, all that stuff.

And I'm just trying to just get your mind to thinking about what

we talked about about a week ago of all of these things.

And we finalized it with that. God even told Jeremiah that

whenever he was going to bring destruction upon a city or a

place such as Babylon, he said in order for every man to be

delivered from that and that no one to be cut off in that

iniquity. He said then basically you're

just going to have to flee. You're going to have to

separate, you're going to have to get out and avoid all contact

and connections. And that was the severity of the

plan for Lot in his family. Because when we read in verse 14

that he's received this instruction, how there's a cry

against the city, destruction's going to come against the city.

And we're talking to you Lot, because you need to be

responsible about disseminating this information to your

children and your wife, not just telling them, but showcasing and

exampling for them. Not just saying, guys, we need

to get out and you linger and stay, which is what he did.

But by example, it would been great.

Rather than the angels taking the hand of Lot's wife and his

children, that Lot would have taken the hand.

Man, I feel the Holy Ghost already that lot would have

taken the hand of his wife and his children and LED them

outside, away from this city. And there's a tragedy, though,

that we see in verse #14 and what this is, is the tragedy of

living a life that's full of discrepancies, living a life

that's full of blurred convictions.

And that is whenever he went and spake these things to his sons

in laws to be the ones that his daughters are betrothed to.

And he's telling them that we need to get up out of this place

because God's going to destroy this place.

The Bible says that they looked at him, they considered, and he

seemed as one that mocked unto them.

Because here's the fact, sometimes you can have

discrepancies in your life and you only show people the side of

you you want them to see. And sometimes you can play a

real good game about living in 2 worlds.

I'll show this world what I want them to see.

And when I'm out of that context and I'm in this world, I'll show

this other side of me of what I want them to see.

I won't show them that world side.

I'll show them this world side because that's what's acceptable

in this context, and I'll show them what I want them to see in

this side because that's what's acceptable in this context.

But I'll never get it reversed. I want to.

I just want to show them what is acceptable in the context.

I just search, show certain aspects of myself.

But here's the conflict. Whenever you get into the the

mesh part of family close relations, it's impossible to

keep both and all facets of your life that you just want to show

certain people it's family knows.

All. Family knows the good, the bad

and the ugly. They know the holy and the

unholy they they know all aspects.

And so here are some sons and laws to be that are coming along

being you know how it is, you know how it is.

Whenever someones going to be married to another individual,

they start to get intertwoven into your family.

They start seeing your parents as they are.

They don't just see, you know, you know, even during, you know,

dating or whatever. They don't just see the the

brother and sister McGee church brother and sister McGee.

They see the home brother and sister McGee.

You understand? What I'm seeing?

And so here are these two guys, the son in law's future

relatives. They have a vantage point of

seeing every aspect of Lot's life.

And so knowing this, knowing these sides and facets of of Lot

that are not all congruent, they don't all harmonize.

There's discord in his life. They when Lot is trying to be

serious about we need to get out of Sodom and we need to leave

here, guys, you need to get up out of here.

They're having a hard time taking him serious because they

see a man that chose to live here, that chose to bring up his

children here, that allowed his daughters to be engaged to them

when they're men of this sensual and wicked city.

And so they're having a hard time taking him seriously

because you've lived here all these years you've been here,

you've been at the gate, all these things.

And so they observed what they observed.

They observed the inconsistency of lot, and when you see this in

individuals, you know what it is.

It's hard to know what's real, what what, what side of them is

real? Who are they really?

In another sense that the boys could even thought we're men of

Sodom, you're telling us to get up from this place that this is

our home. This is our they could even felt

a little ridiculed themselves. You're saying get away from this

place, this we're men of Sodom, this is all we ever known.

You're telling me that the lifestyle here, we need to flee

away from them and see see how confused you're telling us to

flee away from this place. This is all we've ever known.

But this is what you've honored, that your daughters can be

married. 2 That's confusing. Can I say is it amazing how

confusing we can make the world by living at this?

Life. With several discrepancies as a

Christian. Amen.

So the the point that was demonstrated in the following

few verses here, if I can begin reading again in verse #15 the

Bible says when the morning arose, then the angels hastened

Lot. The amplified Bible says the

angels urged Lot to hurry. So he's already got the

information. He knows it's going to take

place. And still the morning of,

they're like, get up Lot, let's move on.

All right, Arise, take thy wife, thy two daughters, which are

here, lest thou be consumed of the iniquity of this city.

Amen. I'm just going to go and read

verse 16 and then I'll comment. And while he lingered, this is

just baffling. The men laid upon his hand and

upon the hand of his wife. And remember, the men are the

angelic upon the hand of his two daughters, The Lord being

merciful unto them and brought them forth and set them without

the city. So here's Lot, the head of his

household. He's urged by the angelic to

take responsibility for the rest of his family, his wife and his

daughters and the angels there. Of course, they don't want Lot,

right? This, this is a, a connection.

Abraham, you. In other words, you should not

be here. You shouldn't have you.

You should not be here. You've proved that you can't

live here without being vexed and be an influence.

You, you, you've not, you've not just as I said last week, it's

not that you put the accursed thing in your house.

You put your house in the accursed thing.

You've done all these things. So you need to get out here.

So you're not taking in the iniquity of this city.

If you're associated with this, you're going to go down with

what you're communing with you. You need to get out of here.

What are they telling? They're letting light know what

would happen right here would be a needless loss.

This can be prevented. This can be prevented.

Can I tell you tonight? I feel my Holy Ghost here

tonight, Can I tell you I have stood by the bedsides and I have

stood in some horrible situations with people through

life that could have been prevented.

They suffered in their life needless losses because they

have had the warning, they heard the cry, they knew what to do.

They just didn't do it, or they were hesitant about do it, or

they didn't hasten. And do it or they lingered where

they was when they knew where they was, were not where they

needed to be. Angels hasten him and the next

verts lot lingers. I mean, I don't know what else.

If you got an Angel saying let's go, you're saying give me 5

minutes angelic visitation. Let's go by to get out of the

city and have my morning coffee yet, you know.

And that sounds ridiculous, but that's how ridiculous sometimes

we are. We got a strong pull of heaven

on us, and we're saying, just give me a little bit more time

where I'm at. So really, Lot's family was

saved by angelic intervention. Light should have been light

should have been the spearhead for it.

But it was really angelic intervention.

And the Bible plainly tells us that what those angels did, the

Lord was doing as an act of mercy.

It was a manifestation of God's mercy and when we read the

scripture in verse 16, the angels taking them out of the

city, I think we start to get a better definition.

What was meant when God says you need to get out, get separate,

get sanctified from because the Bible says the angels see this.

This gives definition to what the plan or purpose was.

The angels brought him forth and set him without the city.

No one's got to wonder. No one's got to wonder what it

means to bring them out of this place, which was mentioned in

verse 12. He said you got to bring them

out of this place. That was the prescription from

the angels to Lot to see what the angels did, that they

brought them out without the city.

Why do you say that? But McGee, because I've just

been around too long and often people want to quibble over,

well, what does that really mean?

Get All in all the semantics about, well, what, what, what?

What? Oh God.

I feel like I could get in some real big trouble tonight.

What what? What does First Corinthians

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Chapter 11 uncut really mean? What, what, what, what, what?

What does? Mean come out from among them

really mean. You understand what I'm saying?

And so we, we've become professionals in the world

today. And sadly, it it's entered into

the context sometimes of the church that we've become

professionals of trying to find loopholes and phrases, stretch

word meanings to accommodate our disobedience.

The word without in verse #16 and I don't have the.

Picture of it, but it's a. Pictograph in the ancient Hebrew

dictionaries indicating a tent wall, and it says the tent wall

divides or separates the inside from the outside.

I know that's deep, folks. Oh, oh, you're going to have to.

But that without is a distinguishing of within or

without, he said. The wall inside the tent divides

even the tent in two separate sections, according to the

Strong's exhaustive concordance. It is from an unused root word,

which means to sever. Therefore, for Lot and his

family to be set without the city means they were severed

from the city. That's a dividing by cutting.

Or a dividing by slicing. That sometimes usually is

forcible and even sudden. When you talk about Sever.

Severing's not casual. Oh God, Severing's not casual.

It's not like going to a loaf of bread, bringing the knife down

and doing one line and scoring it, coming back the same day,

setting the knife on the line, scoring it again, come back the

next day, do it again. No, no, severing is cutting all

the way through in the moment, forcibly separating asunder 2

distinguishable pieces set apart.

It's not casual, but we get casual with what's not

permissible. And we're like, well, I'll do,

I'll do a little bit there and I'll do a little bit there.

No, no, no, friend, you need to be sanctified.

You need to sever, you need to be cut asunder.

You need to have a distinguishable dividing.

The angels made it plain without, without.

Further explanation is given verse 17.

The Bible says when they had brought them forth abroad, that

word abroad again from the say Hebrew word, that the word

without is from in verse #16 this for lot in his family,

this, this separation was, was a element of life and death for

them. He told them in verse #17 The

angels did escape for thy life. He's already brought them out,

but he says escape for thy life. Look not behind thee, neither

stay thou in the plain. Sodom, Gomorrah, Zohar, 2 other

cities were all the cities of the plain, all cities that were

prescribed for destruction. This is interesting because

Sister Rhonda, it wasn't just without the city, but he said

you need to keep going. You need to escape for your

life. What's he saying?

He's saying where you are even right now is not safe.

He said escape for your life. Don't look behind you.

So don't look behind you. Escape for your life.

So whenever you look at these individual phrases like in verse

17, escape look not. Stay.

Neither, stay. All of those are emphatic

statements, huh. No, this is imperative.

It's emphatic look. Amen.

Whenever we talk about the word look, it says look not behind

thee. That word look is defined as

strong defines it as to scan. That is, look intently at by

implication to regard with pleasure, favor or care.

He says don't look behind you. That's what you're leaving.

Don't turn around and look with a intense daze of regarding and

have pleasure for where I want you to get away from.

He says don't do it. He said don't direct your your

attention behind you. Don't direct your attention

where you're leaving because it's a common problem to leave a

place or even a person. I told you last week and do that

physically, but your heart still yearns and lungs for it.

I told you it was the story of Israel in the wilderness.

Their feet were not on Egyptian soil.

They'd went through the Red Sea. They're in the wilderness.

They are by all means severed and separated physically from

Egypt, but their heart and mind still got the entanglements.

He man of reminiscing the bout Egypt with a forlonging for what

they once had and we got to stop for a moment because here's the

the device of the adversary. He'll make you look pleasurable

upon something that you had that when you was there you did not

even like they were slaves in Egypt.

Can you imagine looking back to say, Boy?

Those were the good days. But that's the tactic to the

enemy. Have you looked back on a time

that when you was in it, it was repulsive to you?

But since you're away from it now and looking back, all you

can recall is the physical mental attachments of that

moment. So the Lord.

Yes, he wants to bring Lord and his family.

I got to hurry. Don't glory.

Amen. We don't want 36.75.

The Lord has a. Desire to get Lot and his family

from there and particularly again, away from the plains to

the mountain. But This is why I label this

part, this is actually incorrect heading, but this is the way

people thinks there is a peril and partial obedience.

The reason why I say it there it's flawed is because there's

no such thing as partial obedience.

If it's not full obedience, it's complete disobedience.

But the peril is this. He's given all this instruction

about what they need to do. And verse 18, Lot says, oh, not

so, my Lord, I don't, I don't know Ed.

I don't know where he was when he was born, behind the door for

brains. I don't know what's going on.

He's just had divine intervention to get him out of

destruction. He's just got plain instruction

what he needed to do. He lingered and they got him up

and got him going. And he says that sounds

wonderful, but not so Lord. Not the mountains, no.

It's the same statement really, that that Peter made when the

blanket came down three times. It had animals that were

uncommon and clean. So I've never hated that.

And the Lord said arise. And he's like, not so Lord.

It's a contradictory statement. How can you tell someone who is

supposedly your Lord? Master?

No. Yeah, Yeah.

Because if he's Lord and master, that means what the Lord and

master says goes no questions, no negotiations.

He's Lord. But when you interject the not.

So how can you call him Lord and still have a say in the matter?

How can you call him master and still have a say in the matter?

But that's the way I want to live life, right?

That's the way I want to do it. I want to do it when it's

appeasing to me. But whenever it's not, I want to

raise my hand of ejection and say, you can be Lord over every

area but this parcel of land that's mine.

That's so Lord. It's a phrase of contradiction

in terms. Amen.

And so nonetheless, again, Lord recognize that God has been

gracious to him that he has saved his life.

This is all here in your Bible. He says that verse 19.

He understands that, but it would comes to God's plan for

ultimate ultimate safety. So it's not so so lots like

Lord, I know you saved me. I'm gracious.

I know you was merciful, but going to the mountain would be

death for me. And again, and I said this last

week, if he says I cannot escape to the mountain, I cannot escape

to the mountain. But it's more like I will not

escape to the mountain. So the city that he lived in.

Sodom going to be destroyed. Fire and brimstone right?

The Lord intends to destroy all the cities of the plains, which

includes Zoar. But God has specified a place

and the mountain as a place they should go so that they won't be

consumed. Lord says no, He's refusing to

go totally after the Lord. Between Sodom and the mountain

is a place called Zoar. Zoar is said to be located 2 to

5 miles from Sodom. Let's just put it in terms.

It'd almost be, if we go to the extent of it maybe going this

direction, it'd be like Kingsburg.

Kingsburg. And Lot emphasizes it's, it's a

little city, Lord. It's a little city in the

plains. It's a little city that's in the

path of destruction Lord. It's near to flee unto.

He says in verse #20 to the Lord.

It's close to Sodom, Lord. It's not Sodom God, but it's

close to Sodom Lord. I know it's still on the list

for Destruction God, but it's just a little city Lord.

I understand, God, that it's going to face the same fate that

Sodom faces. I understand that's what it's

destined for, but it's not the same town.

God, I know it's just little. It may have some similar

characterizations, but it's just a little city.

It's a small town and I'm just wanting you just to spare it

because it's not much. It's going to meet the same

fate. It's what God had planned for

it. But Lot's arguing, it's just

small. Oh, the arguments we can come up

with, God. It's nothing big, Lord.

It's just small. It's not like a real core issue,

God. Let's use this one.

It's not a salvation issue, God. But if it looks like a duck and

it quacks like a duck, eat a duck.

Oh God, help me. And so a.

Lot of reasons, he said. I can't go to the mountain God.

Some evil might happen to me there.

God says that's your place. Some evil might happen to me.

I'll die, the agent told him. You can't stay in Sodom, you

can't stay in the plains because you for sure is going to die.

But a lot begins to reason with the Lord about not being able to

make it to the mountain before the destruction would start.

So I want to resort to somewhere near.

I want to just pause for a moment.

If Lot is really troubled in his mind by not having enough time

to make it to the mountain, and that seems like impossible to

him to reach that destiny, then I wonder if he should have

started thinking about that a little bit more when he was

still lingering inside him. Verse 21 God agrees, he

acquiesces. He said haste the escape thither

talking about Zohar, go to that little city, go to that little

city. God gives look at this.

Oh we're like yes, God gives lot what he wanted.

He said I've accepted thee concerning this thing also.

Not only have I been magnified My mercy in getting you out of

Sodom, I have accepted thee and this little back and forth thing

over Zoar. I'll spare Zoar and I'll show

you the my extreme mercy. O folks, be careful about God's

extreme mercy because there's a fine line between it being mercy

and judgement. Look at God's mercy up to this

point of time. He sent angelic warning to

Sodom. He's allowed time for them to

leave Sodom. He allowed the angels to take

them out of Sodom while Lot lingered.

He pointed them the direction and instruction about where they

could go for sure to be safe. And then He gives Lot what He

wanted. I've said this statement before,

probably years ago, but you got to be careful when you get what

you want when it isn't what God originally told you, because

getting what you want in that moment isn't necessarily God

agreeing with you. God's about.

Ready to take you to school? Because it's not about just

getting out of Sodom. Listen to me.

Well, we're talking about his family and those that are

associated and connected to him. It's not about just getting out.

It's about who makes it with you, right?

That's. Right, God's saying if you'll

let me go to this city, this closed city, if you'll spare

from destroying it, I'll live. God, God's like, all right, I'll

acquiesce. I'm with you on this matter.

Hurry up because I can't do anything to Sodom until you

reach Zohar. Get there.

I mean, it shouldn't be difficult.

It's closed, you know, 2 to 5 miles.

It's closer than the mountains. It should be closed.

Settle for Zohar. And the Bible tells us in verse

23 that Lot reached Zohar, and God did.

Then once they reached their rain down fire and brimstone

upon Sodom, Gomorrah and the other plains, the other cities

of the plain, except Zohar. And Lot's probably thinking

himself, man, that was a good deal.

I made with God success. I told you I'd live.

I knew I'd make it. It's just a little thing.

Here I am. Yes, you did, Lot, you did.

But did you ever think you would make it to Zohar and live with

loss? Because verse 26 of this chapter

that I've not read to you tonight yet says this but his.

Lot's wife looked back from behind him.

Lot, and she became a pillar of salt.

Here's the fact that I know from being a part of the human fabric

and dealt with people. When you get what you want

rather than what God deemed for you, it will not be as appealing

to you as you thought it would be.

When you get what you thought you really wanted, it will not

be near as appealing after you get it.

Memorializing Scripture in the New Testament, then as Jesus

saying, remember Lord's wife. There's a lot in.

Just those 3 words of remember. Lot's wife because she is a

monument. By all means, to sure a lot that

doesn't fully follow the Lord, but to a man that can't handle a

man, his spiritual and cultural place of headship and leading

his family, it is a testament to not fully separating.

It's a testament to taking sanctification only to the

degree where it's comfortable. We stopped short because we

thought we could make it. We stopped short because we

thought it was OK. We stopped short because, like

Lot, we felt like we was going to die.

Well, you know what? In real terms, your flesh needs

to die. The Bible speaks in Romans about

mortifying the deeds of our flesh.

That means killing them. It needs to die.

I hope somewhere in this Christian walk, it feels like

we're dying. Dying in the flesh.

It's not comfortable. It it's not comfortable.

There's some things my flesh wants to do, but my spirit says

no, there's places my flesh wants to go that God's Spirit

says don't take me. That's uncomfortable.

I need to feel like my flesh is dying.

Lot's thinking about this and he's not considering what might

happen if he if he didn't. If he didn't stay right there,

he could stay close and he could suffer the lost end of

something, someone that was close to him.

So in the end, what he gained was a net loss.

And when we talk about the context of family, sons,

daughters, Howard Webb of that is we talk about the context of

family, we need to remember that when we think we can't make it

to the mountain, there's some that's connected to us that

can't even make it to Zoar. They're not even going to

survive that trip of compromise because they're too close from

where they started from. I don't 2 to 5 miles and there

being four other cities in that area.

Brother Fred landscape in cities on fire.

I don't know what the perimeter of non berm burn was from Zoar

but there's fire all about and I'm sure you could feel some of

the intensity. The heat and the smoke is

filling the air. I don't, I don't.

This is just totally speculation on Pastor's part, but I'm

convinced Lot's wife is so close to where she left, with the fire

and the brimstone falling, feeling the intensity of the

heat and the fire and everything all around her.

She knew what that meant about for what she just left what she

had called home for however many years.

Call it instinctively or with that for lowering of what she

had. She turns, she looks that

intense gaze and I just asked myself then, Sister Grace, had

they went further Yonder to the mountains?

Would it had the same impact on her?

Had she gotten further away and. Just.

Considering the husband wife dynamic and we want to look at.

That's wife, bless God, she looked.

Back. Well, let's pause.

Should we really be so surprised by that when her husband even

lingered? From the start.

We want to beat her up. She looked back, but he

hesitated from the beginning. Bishop I.

Wonder if we sow seeds in our family that manifest themself

later and we're looking at them like what in the world were they

thinking? And it's all we really owed to a

time earlier of discrepancy in our own life that was so thin

but just came to fruition later, she said.

And yet, and this has always caught me, folks, the way that

the Scripture verbalizes this and verse #2 it's always caught

me that. She looked back from behind him.

It's like Lot finally got together.

He's trailing on. Come here.

It's like he's trailing on, right?

He didn't grab his kids hand. He didn't grab his wife's hand

to get out of the city. He's finally got to this place.

He's trailing on because the Bible says he fell unsafe

finally as though are he's going to go to the mountains.

He's he. And so he's trailing on.

She's behind, and from behind him she looks back.

I wonder if the picture. Would have been any different

if, rather than behind him, this was a joint effort.

I know, Hun, we lived there for years.

I, I, I know we, we had our kids back there.

But, but there's something better up ahead.

God, God has got something better for us.

It's going to be OK. Those, those days are those

days. But God's got something.

Don't, don't, don't, don't turn your head.

Don't. Don't worry about the heat that

you feel. Don't worry about the vehemence

of everybody. Don't worry about what's behind.

Look, look what's ahead. Look.

I wonder what have happened if rather than the trailing, there

was the togetherness of the side by side, If the outcome, The

story would have been different if a man would have been a man

and a husband and a father and a leader and a spiritual guide for

those under his care. Stay with me tonight.

I won't. God was given Lot the privilege

since he led his family into Sodom, was given him the

opportunity to lead them out of what he led them into.

But his hesitations, his compromises, his missteps, all

this was just just highlighted the sobering weight of headship

that that he really wasn't fit to handle.

And so he has this wavering conviction about several things

and he delays and he has obedience that's delayed and a

distant almost type form of leadership.

And all of this is just just contributing over and over again

to the confusion of his family to loss, ultimately death, even

of his own spouse. Listen, when we talk about

spiritual headship, men, we're not talking about just being in

front. It's about being present,

guiding with clarity, walking with integrity, staying close

enough to lift those you love when they have a inkling to turn

and look back with forlorn eyes. So I know is that whenever

headship suffers and hesitates, family suffer.

So you got to leave with courage, conviction,

consistency, so on and so forth. And, and, and please understand,

I'm just going to say this. Just kind of the little folding

of the envelope, so to speak. And I know that the dynamics of

families are different, right? We have a lot of mothers that's

raising their children or, or there's even fathers raising.

There's a lot of dynamics. If you don't have the husband in

your life, if that position and aspect is not in your life, then

you're under the subjection of Christ.

So you got to fulfill the role. And I know that's unfair.

I know that's unfair in the design of Scripture.

That is so unfair, but you got to take that role.

You got to take that responsibility and not settle

for what's near and for what's small just because of the

convenience, as it would seem, other because is it really

convenient when it's all said and done?

Because family legacies are dependent upon it.

Family legacies are depend upon it.

And if we don't lead well, we'll lose much.

Can we just begin to talk to the Lord right now, here on this

Wednesday night? Father, I love you.

God, I pray, Lord, help us, God, the men of this assembly of

homes and families, God, the family structures, the Lord

Jesus that's into individual homes and families.

Help us God, to be leaders. Help us, God, to lead well with

clarity, with confidence. With not ambiguity, with not

discrepancy. I pray, O God, today let us not

be some multifaceted thing Lord, that just shows parts and pieces

of ourselves for the convenience of the moment or the context.

Help us, O Lord, today God, empower us.

Help us Lord to receive the instruction of the Lord and God,

when you say sever, when you say separate, help us Lord to take

that to heart. Help us, O Lord, not with a

longing eye, Lord Jesus to constantly look and just Lord

with a pleasurable regard of wanting to to go back to or get

to a spot that in the moment when we were in it, it was it

was just Lord falling down around us.

It wasn't what it it seemed to be.

God is just a deploy a deception of the enemy for us to look back

with a longing eye on something that we want Lord discarded.

I pray, O God today, Lord, raise up strength within the fibers.

Lord of the members, Lord of the church.

Help us, O God today, Lord, to be sold out to you and

understand your instruction can be trusted Lord and it's

noteworthy and God just because I get what I want may not be

what I needed. It may cost me more God than I

realized I wanted to pay God. Let there be a spirit of

conviction, Lord, upon our homes and our families, our children,

our husbands, our wives, God, the inner workings of the web

Lord God of the families of this church.

God help us Lord to lead with honor.

Lead well, lead well, lead well, Lord, at the very Lord's spoken

word of God, written word of. God is our guide Lord, and will

not fail to thank you and praise you Lord for what you can

accomplish through it. In the lovely name of Jesus

Christ that I pray Hallelujah and Amen of the church say Amen,

Amen, Amen, Amen, Hallelujah. Friday night game night, 7:00 to

1:50 service on Sunday. All right, we'll be here.

Stay cool, Amen. Stay cool, Amen.

Don't get overheated. God bless you.

Have a wonderful week this week in Jesus name.