Wednesday, October 19, 2016

The Contradiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2AofZ3fvLI

Last post, I left you with a contradiction. You may have noticed.

I told you no one was beyond redemption even as we were concluding the story of God wiping out Sodom whom the angels claimed was beyond redemption. Not five righteous people there.

Step back a bit. We've been discussing our Fallen Flesh. We tend to see ourselves as individuals. More: as special individuals. Our goals are specific to us. No one else has them. No one else wants to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, a novelist. No one else wants to find that perfect person and live with them forever. or find all those perfect women in bed with them over and over, falling like one captured lover after another. Except, of course, that simply isn't true.

As we go through life, we discover everyone has some variation on our dream.

They may want to work for it or have it handed to them.

They may believe it will come from work or just fall into their laps.

They may have attained it by work or by it falling onto their laps.

Almost certainly, however they got it, they will surely believe you should have to work for it.

And then we go on Facebook and realize we agree with a lot of people. And disagree with a lot of them. And some of them hate us without even meeting us. Some of them call us "trolls" for merely showing up somewhere and pointing out they are foolish. And ignorant. And uninformed. And really hate us. While we are DOING OUR BEST NOT TO SHOUT AT THEM!!!!! Honestly, how can they be that way?

Or on YouTube where they get really uninformed about media and politics and books and Hilary and Don and Kim and we have to clear things up and they again get this attitude like they know SO much about the world and then a bunch of them gang up and start calling us names and try to chase us out of town make threats like they'd grab us and rape us if they could...

Oh...

Kind of like a virtual Sodom?

And we discover we are all a lot more alike than we first imagined. A lot more like those guys in Sodom than we want to admit, than some of us could ever admit.

And a quote comes wafting back to me from somewhere a long time ago, something I read but forgot, the way we so often forget the Bible, the Word.

“If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest.”
― Corrie ten Boom

Cornelia "Corrie" ten Boom (15 April 1892 – 15 April 1983) was a Dutch watchmaker and Christian who, along with her father and other family members, helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. She was imprisoned for her actions. Her most famous book, The Hiding Place, describes the ordeal.

I present a very long story here from her life. A story about forgiveness which has haunted me since I read it in another source. I print it up whole here:

Corrie ten Boom

As appeared in

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a balding heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear.

It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown.

“When we confess our sins,” I said, “God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever.”

The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones.

It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent.

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: “A fine message, fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!”

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course–how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your talk,” he was saying. “I was a guard in there.” No, he did not remember me.

“But since that time,” he went on, “I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein”–again the hand came out–“will you forgive me?”

And I stood there–I whose sins had every day to be forgiven–and could not. Betsie had died in that place–could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality.

Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.”

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!”

For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.

And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I never again had difficulty in forgiving: I wish I could say it! I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me from then on. But they didn’t.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned at 80 years of age, it’s that I can’t store up good feelings and behavior–but only draw them fresh from God each day.

Maybe I’m glad it’s that way. For every time I go to Him, He teaches me something else. I recall the time, some 15 years ago, when some Christian friends whom I loved and trusted did something which hurt me.

You would have thought that, having forgiven the Nazi guard, this would have been child’s play. It wasn’t. For weeks I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me. And again it happened: first the cold-blooded decision, then the flood of joy and peace.

I had forgiven my friends; I was restored to my Father.

Then, why was I suddenly awake in the middle of the night, hashing over the whole affair again? My friends! I thought. People I loved! If it had been strangers, I wouldn’t have minded so.

I sat up and switched on the light. “Father, I though it was all forgiven! Please help me do it!”

But the next night I woke up again. They’d talked so sweetly too! Never a hint of what they were planning. “Father!” I cried in alarm. “Help me!”

His help came in the form of a kindly Lutheran pastor to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks.

“Up in that church tower,” he said, nodding out the window, “is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there’s a final dong and it stops.

“I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we’ve been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn’t be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They’re just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down.”

And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversation. But the force–which was my willingness in the matter–had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether.

And so I discovered another secret of forgiveness: that we can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts.

And still He had more to teach me, even in this single episode. Because many years later, in 1970, an American with whom I had shared the ding-dong principle came to visit me in Holland and met the people involved. “Aren’t those the friends who let you down?” he asked as they left my apartment.

“Yes,” I said a little smugly. “You can see it’s all forgiven.”

“By you, yes,” he said. “But what about them? Have they accepted your forgiveness?”

“They say there’s nothing to forgive! They deny it ever happened. But I can prove it!” I went eagerly to my desk. “I have it in black and white! I saved all their letters and I can show you where–”

“Corrie!” My friend slipped his arm through mine and gently closed the drawer. “Aren’t you the one whose sins are at the bottom of the sea? And are the sins of your friends etched in black and white?”

For an anguishing moment I could not find my voice. “Lord Jesus,” I whispered at last, “who takes all my sins away, forgive me for preserving all these years the evidence against others! Give me grace to burn all the blacks and whites as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to Your glory.”

I did not go to sleep that night until I had gone through my desk and pulled out those letters–curling now with age–and fed them all into my little coal-burning grate. As the flames leaped and glowed, so did my heart.

“Forgive us our trespasses,” Jesus taught us to pray, “as we forgive those who trespass against us.” In the ashes of those letters I was seeing yet another facet of His mercy. What more He would teach me about forgiveness in the days ahead I didn’t know, but tonight’s was good news enough.

When we bring our sins to Jesus, He not only forgives them, He makes them as if they had never been.

Forgiveness.

If anyone deserved to be unforgiven, it was the Nazi. Instead of being in Hell, he found eternal life. Instead of destroying her witness, ten Boom found the depths of love that God has are unfathomable. God forgive me when I forget either of those lesson.

But, you ask, how can this be? What happened in Sodom that was so bad that God destroyed the whole city?

First, we all know now where sexual sin leads. To a life of degradation, to a life of being a slave to desires and sometimes to a life of slavery fro some women and men, often against their will. The fact it can be abused to the extent it takes choice away from others and allows someone to think they are god, to create the illusion they rule another's life when in fact they are also slaves to their own desires, makes it one of the deepest, most binding sins. The proliferation of pornography on the internet, the stated notion by some that "porn powers the internet", the idea that somehow it is responsible for the rush to develop more realistic video games, the notion, actually assumption that it is a given, advanced in Westworld that humans will created androids and then use them for sexual and violent fantasy fulfillment, all makes ti a little clearer why sexual sin seems tomhave a soecial place in God's list of taboos.

Second, we also know of the diseases that run rampant of sexual desires are not kept to the one person in marriage. The Law would define adultery of any sort as sin.

Let's take a moment here and point out again that the urge for homsexual rape expressed by the men in the story was not the reason for Sodom's destruction. It was coming on anyway. Already decided. Sodom and the cities around were not keeping any idea of single marriage or of faithfulness to the spouse. This final incident merely demonstrated to us and to Lot the depths to which the city had sunk and the fact Lot could not stay there any longer. They would have killed him soon for protecting the strangers.

It also demonstrated that the sin of lust comes from the eyes. The angels blinded their assailants, The desire for the angels came from seeing their beauty and God took away the organ that misled them. Emphasizes too the fact revealed by every scientific study done in our age that men are excited by what they see, the underlying power of pornography. The seduction of the eye leads to actions. Look at how attractive the fruit on that tree is Eve, Adam.

But, back to disease, imagine the people were dying of AIDS or gonorrhea or syphilis. These are all deadly, fatal diseases, the last involving the mental deterioration of the sick person. All can exist without obvious symptoms for a time and be spread by the sick person to others by sexual contact. The modern world has forgotten how deadly the last two are because we have developed drugs that treat them successfully, though there was a rumor during the Vietnam War that soldiers had contracted a particularly virulent form of syphilis and were being sent to a far off island to die.

Here are the various symptoms and treatments today:

http://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Gonorrhea-Chlamydia-and-Syphilis

Gonorrhea, Chlamydia, and Syphilis

What are gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis?

Gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis are sexually transmitted infections (STIs). These three STIs can cause serious, long-term problems if they are not treated, especially for teenagers and young women.

What causes gonorrhea and chlamydia?

Both gonorrhea and chlamydia are caused by bacteria. The bacteria are passed from one person to another through vaginal, anal, or oral sex. Gonorrhea and chlamydia often occur together.

Where do these infections occur?

Gonorrhea and chlamydia infections can occur in the mouth, reproductive organs, urethra, and rectum. In women, the most common place is the cervix (the opening of the uterus).

At what age do these infections most commonly occur?

Although gonorrhea and chlamydia can occur at any age, young women and teenagers who are sexually active are at greater risk of both infections.

What are the symptoms of gonorrhea and chlamydia?

Women with gonorrhea or chlamydia often have no symptoms. When symptoms from either infection do occur, they may show up 2 days to 3 weeks after infection. They may be very mild and can be mistaken for a urinary tract or vaginal infection. The most common symptoms in women include the following:

A yellow vaginal discharge
Painful or frequent urination
Vaginal bleeding between menstrual periods
Rectal bleeding, discharge, or pain

How are gonorrhea and chlamydia diagnosed?

To find out if you have gonorrhea or chlamydia, your health care professional may take a sample of cells from your throat, cervix, urethra, or rectum where the infection may occur. Gonorrhea and chlamydia also can be detected with a urine test.

What complications are associated with infection with gonorrhea and chlamydia?

Both gonorrhea and chlamydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), an infection that occurs when bacteria move from the vagina and cervix upward into the uterus, ovaries, or fallopian tubes (see FAQ007 “Pelvic Inflammatory Disease [PID]”). After a woman is infected with gonorrhea or chlamydia and if she does not receive treatment, it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks before she develops PID.

How is infection with gonorrhea and chlamydia treated?

Gonorrhea and chlamydia are treated with antibiotics. You will need to be retested 3 months after treatment to see if the infection is gone.

What causes syphilis?

Syphilis also is caused by bacteria. It differs from gonorrhea and chlamydia because it occurs in stages. It is spread more easily in some stages than in others.

How is syphilis spread?

The bacteria that cause syphilis enter the body through a cut in the skin or through contact with a syphilis sore known as achancre. Because this sore commonly occurs on the vulva, vagina, anus, or penis, syphilis most often is spread through sexual contact. It also can be spread by touching the rash, warts, or infected blood during the secondary stage of infection.

What are symptoms of syphilis?

Symptoms of syphilis differ by stage:

Primary stage—Syphilis first appears as a painless chancre. This sore goes away without treatment in 3–6 weeks.
Secondary stage—The next stage begins as the chancre is healing or several weeks after the chancre has disappeared, when a rash may appear. The rash usually appears on the soles of the feet and palms of the hands. Flat warts may be seen on the vulva. During this stage, there may be flu-like symptoms. This stage is highly contagious.
Latent and late stages—The rash and other symptoms go away in a few weeks or months, but the disease still is present in the body. If untreated, the disease may return in its most serious form years later.

How is syphilis diagnosed?

In the early stages, discharge from open sores is examined to see if syphilis bacteria are present. In later stages, a blood test also can be done to check for antibodies to the bacteria.

What are complications of syphilis?

Late-stage syphilis is a serious illness. Heart problems, neurologic problems, and tumors may occur, leading to brain damage, blindness, paralysis, and even death. The genital sores caused by syphilis also make it easier to become infected with and transmit human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

How is syphilis treated?

Syphilis is treated with antibiotics. If it is caught and treated early, long-term problems can be prevented. The length of treatment depends on how long a person has had the disease.

And from the Centers for Disease Control, the official govenrment stats:

How common is syphilis?

During 2015, there were 74,702 reported new cases of syphilis, compared to 44,784 estimated new diagnoses of HIV infection in 2014 and 395,216 cases of gonorrhea in 2015.1, 2 Of syphilis cases, 23,872 were of primary and secondary (P&S) syphilis, the earliest and most transmissible stages of syphilis. During the 1990s, syphilis primarily occurred among heterosexual men and women of racial and ethnic minority groups; during the 2000s, however, cases increased among men who have sex with men (MSM).3 In 2015, MSM accounted for 81.7% of all P&S syphilis cases among males in which sex of sex partner was known.

Congenital syphilis (syphilis passed from pregnant women to their babies) continues to be a concern in the United States. During 2015, 487 cases of congenital syphilis were reported, compared to an estimated 128 cases of perinatal HIV infection during 2014. 1 Congenital syphilis rates were 8.0 times and 3.5 times higher among infants born to black and Hispanic mothers (35.2 and 15.5 cases per 100,000 live births, respectively) compared to white mothers (4.4 cases per 100,000 live births).

How do people get syphilis?

Syphilis is transmitted from person to person by direct contact with a syphilitic sore, known as a chancre. Chancres occur mainly on the external genitals, vagina, anus, or in the rectum. Chancres also can occur on the lips and in the mouth. Transmission of syphilis occurs during vaginal, anal, or oral sex. Pregnant women with the disease can transmit it to their unborn child.

How quickly do symptoms appear after infection?

The average time between infection with syphilis and the start of the first symptom is 21 days, but can range from 10 to 90 days.

Most of these diseases likely existed back then. AIDS may the new element in our modern drama but we can't really be sure since it came from an African area where sexual deviation is widely practiced. Some early mutation could have existed then. In a genetic pool with everyone having sex with everyone else as it was in the antediluvian world, one mutation would have made these already awful diseases even deadlier. They would have passed from one person to another and, as we see clearly above, from mother to unborn child. They had already traveled from one city to another and God spared Zoar only for Lot to go there so it was likely less infected than the rest. Perhaps spared the mutation. It seems quite possible that the highly concentrated cauldron of sexual activity would have or already had developed something a lethal as aids with nothing like modern medicine to combat it. If god acted to destroy the world only after he had the patience to give them time to make the best choice, he may have acted in the thoroughly corrupt S and G only after they had been given the example of Lot to see how they should act toward strangers. Noah was ignored and allowed to take the ark. Lot was ignored and would have been killed if he wasn't also rescued and allowed to leave. I suggested in the first case that the giant mutation had gotten so bad it would have ruined the human strain and I suggest now that whatever STD's existed in S and G would have spread like wildfire and taken all humanity with it had it not been stopped there.

God's command that humanity be scattered had its reasons which we see clarified in our current studies of epidemics. Experts suggest many of the deadliest diseases we have seen over the centuries, from leprosy to the plague were far less deadly than they may have been because travel was so limited. For instance, we know that the native american population was wiped out as much by the diseases that were brought to the New World as by the aggression of their invaders. Their immune systems had no protection from the illnesses the sailors brought. The black Plague spread through Europe because trade had so effectively because rats rode on the commerce ships, drawn by grain and supplies on board and they took their flea infestations with them. Trade among the Middle Eastern areas during Abe's time could have brought all manner of disease to Abe and his band. God could not allow the death of the first Hebrew. We see the idea of people going back in time to change events in the current TV show Timeless and can recall the old question : "What if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler before he had the chance to influence Germany?"

There were no antibiotics then. There was no way to keep disease from ravaging our Fallen Flesh and being passed from one generation to the next.

God imposed a "quarantine" on the cities, They would have become the source of the world

destruction, have physically corrupted the pure line. e.g., Ruth the Moabite, who was an ancestor of Jesus, came for the result of the sorry union of Lot and one of his daughters. God took even this misguven sexual act and used it in his plan of the Line,

But, despite all the evil and the likelihood of disease, God gave, will always give humanity every chance to accept His will and act accordingly.

But what does this have to do with the contradiction? How can anyone be saved and yet some be beyond redemption?

Did God put Lot there to begin with? He allowed it. Did Lot lead a righteous life? Peter says he did.

2Pe 2:4 For if God did not have pity for the angels who did evil, but sent them down into hell, to be kept in chains of eternal night till they were judged;
5 And did not have mercy on the world which then was, but only kept safe Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when he let loose the waters over the world of the evil-doers;
6 And sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah, burning them up with fire as an example to those whose way of life might in the future be unpleasing to him;
7 And kept safe Lot, the upright man, who was deeply troubled by the unclean life of the evil-doers
8 (Because the soul of that upright man living among them was pained from day to day by seeing and hearing their crimes):
9 The Lord is able to keep the upright safe in the time of testing, and to keep evil-doers under punishment till the day of judging;
10 But specially those who go after the unclean desires of the flesh, and make sport of authority. Ready to take chances, uncontrolled, they have no fear of saying evil of those in high places:
11 Though the angels, who are greater in strength and power, do not make use of violent language against them before the Lord.
12 But these men, like beasts without reason, whose natural use is to be taken and put to death, crying out against things of which they have no knowledge, will undergo that same destruction which they are designing for others;
13 For the evil which overtakes them is the reward of their evil-doing: such men take their pleasure in the delights of the flesh even in the daytime; they are like the marks of a disease, like poisoned wounds among you, feasting together with you in joy;
14 Having eyes full of evil desire, never having enough of sin; turning feeble souls out of the true way; they are children of cursing, whose hearts are well used to bitter envy;
15 Turning out of the true way, they have gone wandering in error, after the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who was pleased to take payment for wrongdoing;
16 But his wrongdoing was pointed out to him: an ass, talking with a man's voice, put a stop to the error of the prophet.

17 These are fountains without water, and mists before a driving storm; for whom the eternal night is kept in store.

18 For with high-sounding false words, making use of the attraction of unclean desires of the flesh, they get into their power those newly made free from those who are living in error;
19 Saying that they will be free, while they themselves are the servants of destruction; because whatever gets the better of a man makes a servant of him.

20 For if, after they have got free from the unclean things of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again taken in the net and overcome, their last condition is worse than their first.

21 For it would have been better for them to have had no knowledge of the way of righteousness, than to go back again from the holy law which was given to them, after having knowledge of it.

22 They are an example of that true saying, The dog has gone back to the food it had put out, and the pig which had been washed to its rolling in the dirty earth.
(BBE)

These verses gave me the structure for much of this first section and the inspiration, verses found while studying God's words concerning men seeking leadership before the church and the nations, about people who mock authorities, attack them relentlessly to increase their own power and chase after the flesh, and mislead believers who are actually more interested in the desires of the flesh, like health and wealth or their own glory in the pulpit, than in obedience to God. And Pete was never one to mince words o we can be certain this was the unvarnished truth. And an accurate comparison.

The thing of it is: in every case, the truth is presented, Noah, Lot to his in-laws, and only then does God act. Every chance to repent was given. Is given.

No one is beyond redemption.

Unfortunately, it seems many will not take the offer to escape and won't believe because the desires of the Fallen Flesh pull them in to an eternal dying.

No one before the flood would listen. Not even those who knew lot in Sodom would listen. The seductive liar always has humanities ear, even when the truth is revealed, we humans often refuse to listen. Our sins deafen us. Our eyes deceive us. Our foolish hearts go on.

In the thrall of Fallen flesh, humanity doesn't take the offer. WE are the reason salvation is imperfect. God knows who will and won't accept Him. But he still offers. I wonder if some part of Him hopes He's wrong, that His perfection will fail and some lost whore, some diseased pervert will actually come forward and go with Lot, will help Noah in building the ark. But that may just be me adding to God.

When we find Biblical contradictions, it is only the flesh misleading us yet again.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

II.

Part Two

Ge 19:1 And at nightfall the two angels came to Sodom; and Lot was seated at the way into the town: and when he saw them he got up and came before them, falling down on his face to the earth.
2 And he said, My masters, come now into your servant's house and take your rest there for the night, and let your feet be washed; and early in the morning you may go on your way. And they said, Not so, but we will take our night's rest in the street.
3 But he made his request more strongly, so they went with him into his house; and he got food ready for them, and made unleavened bread, of which they took.
4 But before they had gone to bed, the men of the town, all the men of Sodom, came round the house, young and old, from every part of the town;
5 And crying out to Lot, they said, Where are the men who came to your house this night? Send them out to us, so that we may take our pleasure with them.
6 And Lot went out to them in the doorway, shutting the door after him.
7 And he said, My brothers, do not this evil.
8 See now, I have two unmarried daughters; I will send them out to you so that you may do to them whatever seems good to you: only do nothing to these men, for this is why they have come under the shade of my roof.
9 And they said, Give way there. This one man, they said, came here from a strange country, and will he now be our judge? now we will do worse to you than to them; and pushing violently against Lot, they came near to get the door broken in.
10 But the men put out their hands and took Lot into the house to them, shutting the door again.
11 But the men who were outside the door they made blind, all of them, small and great, so that they were tired out with looking for the door.
12 Then the men said to Lot, Are there any others of your family here? sons-in-law or sons or daughters, take them all out of this place;
13 For we are about to send destruction on this place, because a great outcry against them has come to the ears of the Lord; and the Lord has sent us to put an end to the town.
14 And Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were married to his daughters, Come, let us go out of this place, for the Lord is about to send destruction on the town. But his sons-in-law did not take him seriously.
15 And when morning came, the angels did all in their power to make Lot go, saying, Get up quickly and take your wife and your two daughters who are here, and go, for fear that you come to destruction in the punishment of the town.
16 But while he was waiting, the men took him and his wife and his daughters by the hand, for the Lord had mercy on them, and put them outside the town.
17 And when they had put them out, he said, Go for your life, without looking back or waiting in the lowland; go quickly to the mountain or you will come to destruction.
18 And Lot said to them, Not so, O my Lord;
19 See now, your servant has had grace in your eyes and great is your mercy in keeping my life from destruction, but I am not able to get as far as the mountain before evil overtakes me and death;
20 This town, now, is near, and it is a little one: O, let me go there (is it not a little one?) so that my life may be safe.
21 And he said, See, I have given you your request in this one thing more: I will not send destruction on this town.
22 Go there quickly, for I am not able to do anything till you have come there. For this reason, the town was named Zoar.
23 The sun was up when Lot came to Zoar.
24 Then the Lord sent fire and flaming smoke raining down from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.
25 And he sent destruction on those towns, with all the lowland and all the people of those towns and every green thing in the land.
26 But Lot's wife, looking back, became a pillar of salt.
27 And Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had been talking with the Lord:
28 And looking in the direction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the lowland, he saw the smoke of the land going up like the smoke of an oven.
29 So it came about that when God sent destruction on the towns of the lowland, he kept his word to Abraham, and sent Lot safely away when he put an end to the towns where he was living.
30 Then Lot went up out of Zoar to the mountain, and was living there with his two daughters, for fear kept him from living in Zoar: and he and his daughters made their living-place in a hole in the rock.
31 And the older daughter said to her sister, Our father is old, and there is no man to be a husband to us in the natural way:
32 Come, let us give our father much wine, and we will go into his bed, so that we may have offspring by our father,
33 And that night they made their father take much wine; and the older daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.
34 And on the day after, the older daughter said to the younger, Last night I was with my father; let us make him take much wine this night again, and do you go to him, so that we may have offspring by our father.
35 And that night again they made their father take much wine; and the younger daughter went into his bed; and he had no knowledge of when she went in or when she went away.
36 And so the two daughters of Lot were with child by their father.
37 And the older daughter had a son, and she gave him the name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites to this day.
38 And the younger had a son and gave him the name Ben-ammi: from him come the children of Ammon to this day.

(BBE)

We begin with the clear revelation that God was one of the three talking with Abe because we have that statement: Ge 19:1 And at nightfall the two angels came to Sodom.

Spurgeon:

Genesis 19:2

Bad as his neighbors were, Lot had not forgotten to be hospitable. Grace does not flourish in bad companionship, but still it lives.

Lot has existed with the sin and violence around him, knows the evil of the city and insists on the visitors stay with him for their protection. He is not yet aware they are angels, so unlike his uncle who knew immediately. Lot is fearful for them. he has seen other strangers and what became of them in the city.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown:

1. there came two angels--most probably two of those that had been with Abraham, commissioned to execute the divine judgment against Sodom.

Lot sat in the gate of Sodom--In Eastern cities it is the market, the seat of justice, of social intercourse and amusement, especially a favorite lounge in the evenings, the arched roof affording a pleasant shade.

Matt Poole with summary and opening:

GENESIS CHAPTER 19

Two angels come to Sodom, Ge 19:1. Lot invites them in; they at first refuse, Ge 19:2. They enter; he entertains them, and they eat, Ge 19:3. The men of Sodom demand to know them, Ge 19:4,5. Lot dissuades them, Ge 19:6,7; offers his daughters; urges reason, Ge 19:8. They are obstinate; threaten, and press to break the door, Ge 19:9. The angels pull Lot in, and shut to the door, Ge 19:10; and smite the men with blindness, Ge 19:11. Advise Lot to depart with his kindred, Ge 19:12. The reason, Ge 19:13. Lot speaks to his sons-in-law; they deride him, Ge 19:14. The angels lay hold on Lot, his wife, and two daughters, and carry them out, Ge 19:16; command them not to look back, Ge 19:17. Lot requests to stay in Zoar; it is granted, with a command to hasten, because till they are gone the Lord can do nothing, Ge 19:18-23. God rains brimstone and fire upon Sodom, Ge 19:24,25. Lot's wife looking back becomes a pillar of salt, Ge 19:26. Abraham looks towards Sodom, Ge 19:27,28. God kind to Lot for Abraham's sake, Ge 19:29. Lot and his two daughters remove to the mountain, Ge 19:30. Lot's daughters contrive for an issue, Ge 19:31,32. They make their father drunk, lie with him, Ge 19:33-35; and are with child, Ge 19:36. Moab and Ben-ammi, the two sons, born thereby, Ge 19:37,38.

Ver. 1. And there came two angels, even those two which departed from Abraham, Ge 18:22, and now were come to Lot,

At even of the same day on which they departed from Abraham.

In the gate of Sodom, where he sat either to observe the administration or corruption of justice there; for the seats of judicature were in the gates: or rather to wait for strangers, to whom he might exercise kindness and hospitality.

In all these we see elements of adding things to the text which we all tend to do when we analyze. I include a number here so we can see the angles that exist in the story of the angels.

Patrick-Lowth-Whitby-Lowman the other law firm commentary:

Genesis 19:1

Two angels There were three at the first Ge 18:2, but the chief of them was gone; having dispatched his message to Abraham; unto whom he was peculiarly sent (see Ge 18:2).
At even; They had been with Abraham in the heat of the day; and were now come to the gates of Sodom.
Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: The Hebrew doctors will have it that he was made a judge in this city; and the prime judge of all: for they adventure to name five (in Bereschith Rabba), and say Lot was the president of the court, which sat in the gate of the city. But this is only a fancy of theirs: he rather sat in the gate of this city, as Abraham did at his tent door; to invite strangers to his house (according to the hospitality of those days), which was the greater charity, because he knew the city to be so wicked, that (if we may believe the Hebrew doctors) they not only denied them all assistance, but abused them, and were cruel to them (see Gemara Sanhedrim, cap. 11, and Pirke Eliezer, cap. 15), for which last, they quote those words of Ezekiel Ge 22:24, “they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.” Which are spoken of Israel, whom Eze 16:49 he had compared with Sodom: one of whose sins, he says, was, want of compassion to “the poor and needy.”
Rose up to meet them, &c. Just as Abraham did; whose civility he imitates, as well as his charity. For the bowing himself so lowly was a token of the great honor he paid them: who had the appearance of great and noble persons. And therefore he calls them lords in the next verse.

Thomas Hawies:

Verses 4-5: They who came to see, were soon convinced of the wickedness of Sodom. Observe,

1. The universal corruption, old and young form every quarter. Note, That must needs be a wicked place, where the old set the example, and are ringleaders in iniquity.

2. Their crime. The most monstrous and unnatural; shocking to think of, and infamous to mention; yet they dared avow it, and add imprudence to their vile affections. Note, 1. No sin in the sight of God is more abominable than unnatural lusts. 2. When men have lost shame, they are on the brink of ruin.

Proceeding on to Lot's attempt to "save" the angels from the British Family Bible:

Genesis 19:8

Behold now, I have two daughters &c. If we may not do any evil, to procure a positive good, certainly much less may we do one evil, to avoid or prevent another. Lot should have resolved, rather to suffer any evil, than to do any. He should rather have adventured his own life, and theirs too, in protecting the chastity of his daughters, and the safety of his guests; than have offered the exposal of his daughter to the lusts of the Sodomites, though it were to redeem his guests from the abuse of fouler and more abominable filthiness. There is no perplexity, no necessity, no obligation, no expediency, which should either enforce or persuade us to any sin. The resolution, "Let us do evil, that good may come," is pronounced by an Apostle to be worthy of condemnation. Bp. Sanderson.

Then Lot experiences the results of attempting to stop a single-minded mob of sinners. And the angels rescue him! He is different; he doesn't understand their ways. The alien is among them and stopping them from their sin. The obvious fact: Lot does understand their evil intent and has been trying to live out a more correct life in their midst. He has been an example of a person witnessing to their sin. he has failed in witness since he offered his own children to their desires instead of standing firm. Lot tried to compromise, his life whirled in battle with who he was and the surrounding he chose. He left the righteousness of Abe but it stayed with him. Abraham's influence

How often are our own decisions influenced by the bad choices we make in compromise with the evil around us for the sake of living in peace? How often do we keep our mouths shut to whatever happens because of our greed, our lust, our fear? Lot kept the hospitality of the city by himself. No one else offered the strangers a place to eat or sleep. then he tried to save them with the sacrifice of his family.

Notice how giving everything to the zealot, lost in desires for some evil, got him nothing? How the strangers, had they been merely human, would have died and Lot and his family as well. Nothing will satisfy the obsessed accept what they want NOW. Nothing of the consequences. Nothing of the pain to others.

Keep in mind that rape is a crime of violence and control. While sex is involved, it really amounts to a profound depth of punishment meant to belittle and express tje power of the rapist. The angels were seen as aliens even as Lot, but lot had the protection of the king since Abe still lurked out there with his personal army. The angels had not such protection. This was meant to be a gang rape to establish those men as the leaders of their gang and to establish their might over anyone who wandered in and might one day threaten their power.

Now the angels reveal themselves.

Matt Henry:

Ver. 12.

We have here the preparation for Lot's deliverance.

I. Notice is given him of the approach of Sodom's ruin: We will destroy this place, Ge 19:13. Note, The holy angels are ministers of God's wrath for the destruction of sinners, as well as of his mercy for the preservation and deliverance of his people. In this sense, the good angels become evil angels, Ps 78:49.

II. He is directed to give notice to his friends and relations, that they, if they would, might be saved with him (Ge 19:12):

"Hast thou here any besides, that thou art concerned for? If thou hast, go tell them what is coming."

Now this implies,

1. The command of a great duty, which was to do all he could for the salvation of those about him, to snatch them as brands out of the fire. Note, Those who through grace are themselves delivered out of a sinful state should do what they can for the deliverance of others, especially their relations.

2. The offer of great favour. They do not ask whether he knew any righteous ones in the city fit to be spared: no, they knew there were none; but they ask what relations he had there, that, whether righteous or unrighteous, they might be saved with him. Note, Bad people often fare the better in this world for the sake of their good relations. It is good being akin to a godly man.

III. He applies himself accordingly to his sons-in-law, Ge 19:14. Observe,

1. The fair warning that Lot gave them: Up, get you out of this place. The manner of expression is startling and quickening. It was no time to trifle when the destruction was just at the door. They had not forty days to repent in, as the Ninevites had. Now or never they must make their escape. At midnight this cry was made. Such as this is our call to the unconverted, to turn and live.

2. The slight they put upon this warning: He seemed to them as one that mocked. They thought, perhaps, that the assault which the Sodomites had just now made upon his house had disturbed his head, and put him into such a fright that he knew not what he said; or they thought that he was not in earnest with them. Those who lived a merry life, and made a jest of everything, made a jest of this warning, and so they perished in the overthrow. Thus many who are warned of the misery and danger they are in by sin make a light matter of it, and think their ministers do but jest with them; such will perish with their blood upon their own heads.

The in-laws were born there. They knew it was their city and this was the way they lived. The daughters bore no children by them. They regarded their father-in-law with contempt likely because he didn't indulge in their corrupted lives of the use of women and men alike for their sexual satisfaction. Notice the in-laws were not at the house. They were off carousing and doing what they felt like. Not loyal to the daughters. not loyal to their father-in-law but likely enjoying the fruits of his labor to buy their sins.

If they had listened...If they had been with Lot on the flight from Sodom...If they heard the call of God in their hearts...

Instead they were in Sodom.

Hawies again:

Verses 23-25: Bright was the sun which rose upon devoted Sodom. Safe in their foolish confidence, Lot’s flight afforded matter of fresh ridicule, and now they can welcome the returning day. But see when sinners are in the height of their security, how destruction overtakes them. The sun is covered, the storm arises, the lightning’s glare, the heavens are on fire, the flames descend, the smoking cities send up their dying cries. Too late to call for mercy, it is the time of judgment. Mark the end of sinner’s vain confidence.

Learn, 1. If judgments are on the earth, it is the Lord’s work. The Lord Jesus is not only the Savior of those who believe him, like Lot; but he is the judge and destroyer of those, who like Sodom, reject his salvation. 2. They who go after strange flesh, may expect to be punished with strange judgments. 3. What a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Fools now make a mock of sin, but they will find it a bitter thing, when they shall feel, with Sodom, the vengeance of eternal fire, Jude 1:25.

Not five righteous men in Sodom. Some more liberal commentators suggest it wasn't the treat of sexual assault that got Sodom blasted but their lack of hospitality. I would suggest this was merely the final straw. God already was going to destroy the city and it had decades of other sins against it which God made clear in his talk with Abraham. Abe interceded, Lot interceded. Sin and desire overcame any idea of the Sodomite giving up their way of life.

29 So it came about that when God sent destruction on the towns of the lowland, he kept his word to Abraham, and sent Lot safely away when he put an end to the towns where he was living.
30 Then Lot went up out of Zoar to the mountain, and was living there with his two daughters, for fear kept him from living in Zoar: and he and his daughters made their living-place in a hole in the rock.

Lot continued his pattern. He didn't listen to God again. Lot followed his fear and anxiety, thinking he might be blamed for the twin cities being atomized. The Lord saved a city for him to go to. He went there but his goods were lost. He would have stumbled about with nothing and with daughters to support. God would have blessed him somehow but it required of him that he have Abraham's faith, living into a place with not protection, with God giving him what he needed.

He may have been righteous but he put his faith in what he saw and held. The king of Sodom may have held him captive for the king's own reaosns, but Lot held himself captive to his Fallen Flesh.

Keep in mind, he lost his wife. She didn't listen. She became a pillar of salt, changed by God's power by the force of whatever was released. He now had nothing and no one to share his life.

How many times do we look back at the things lost? I know an older woman who can't forget her times in the church she attended and helped found 40 years ago. She will go on and on about how perfect it was and what a wonderful pace it was and, meanwhile, her children will tell me of various abuses suffered at the hands of the pastor, of the adulteries of some of the elders. How the church policies were basically "We don't drink or chew and we don't go with girls who do." The church has long since ceased to exist. But she still looks back and has become frozen in time, a pillar of moving salt, locked into her vision of all the things gone even as Lot's wife must have been frozen by her longing for the things lost, perhaps for her family lost there as well.

But Abe was still there off in the distance, his intercession blessed. He became a kind of Christ pleading for god's mercy on sinners that Abe loved and God's intervention in their survival. Like every human being in the planet, a sinner can abandon his old life and run to Him. Lot could have gone back to Abe. He could have returned to his "father" who was waiting to greet him. He would have had no conflict with the men and Abe would surely have welcomed him. Instead, he goes into the hills, perhaps held by his own shame or fear he won't be forgiven. I once talked with the unsaved parents of a church elder and they said they couldn't come to church "because the roof would fall in." I told them it didn't fall in on me and invited them. As near as I can tell, they died without ever coming in.

So, like so many of us at one time or another in our lives, shame, poverty, pride, keep Lot in a cave, away from everyone, hiding, We can do that even in a crowd, even with our families, hid in a cave, our american joke about the "man cave." We watch our TV and dream of being the QB or the pitcher and finding life and we can stay ion that cave and spend the rest of our lives in athat cave be be comforted by the false security.

But the real problem is that we drag our children into the cave with us. they end up being satisfied with the football game, the hot dogs, the dreams founded in virtual reality or in the false hopes of soap operas, romance novels, James Bond's guns and dames. the illusions of life.

And Lot's daughters were drawn in as well.

Tom Hawies:

Genesis 19:31 Ge 19:31

Verses 31-38: How little safety is there for us from sin in any place? He, who was kept in Sodom, is overcome in a cave. We have here,

1. His daughters’ wicked contrivance. They had, it is to be feared, been too much tinctured with Sodom’s sin, and were eye-witnesses of its punishment: now the old sore breaks out again; what they could not effect when their father was sober, they endeavor to bring about by drunkenness, and thus one crime is aggravated by another. Note, (1.) When a woman’s heart is set on wickedness, it will go hard, but she succeeds. (2.) No judgments can restrain those, whom divine grace doth not change. (3.) Solitude is so far from being a cure to lewdness that it there usually prevails: to fly away from these evil imaginations into company, is their readiest cure.

2. Lot’s shameful and scandalous fall. Lord, what is man, if left to himself! Drunk and incestuous, and thus repeatedly too: let us read it with horror. Note, (1.) No man this side of heaven is safe from presumptuous sins, or above praying to be kept from them. 2. Drunkenness hath no end of evil; then every crime, without horror or shame, is easily committed. (3.) Let nearest relatives beware: the freedoms of their relation may degenerate into the foulest indulgences.

3. The fruit of this incestuous commerce. Two sons, Moab and Ammon; the two nations also, a perpetual memorial of Lot’s shame. Note, though prosperity may seem to attend the most unnatural sin, the end will be misery and shame.

Please note that the daughters could nt really have thught the world was over unless perhaps Lot himself told them Zoar was going to be destroyed to get them to leave THAT city with him. He must have lied to them to get their cooperation and now he faced the consequences. If Abe wouldn't take him before, surey he could not tae him now.

People get lost in sin, try to redeem ourselves, follow God, then turn back to the same old sin. They listen for redemption, have not lived correctly after and so no one listens when they have the true story that lives will be lost if people don't turn from sin. They crush the message of salvation then turn from their own salvation back to the deoths of sin, deeper than before. It is as if they cannot accept that God loves them because they know how bad they are.

Please don't believe that. Please don't follow Lot's bad example.

Fallen Flesh, no matter how fallen is never beyond redemption.

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

II.

Part One

We arrive at the perfect Fallen Flesh examples: Sodom and Gomorrah.

Recall we began our section talking about humanity wanting everything NOW!!!!

Look at Lot again.

He knew Abram was blessed. he hung around. perhaps his flaw was that that was the only reason he was really hanging around. Abram loved him but Lot was there for the money. The nephew hoping to inherit from the rich uncle. But he got rich himself and his men wee a poor choice, were trying to have fights with Abram's trained men. One you realize that, you see Abram was also concerned one of his men might kill one of Lot's. He was equally concerned for his men as he was for his relationship with Lot. Perhaps he also finally realized that Lot was not the man he hoped, that he was revealing his character through his choice of workers now that he had some money.

Lot waited for Abram to receive his gift of land but now went to the rich watered land.

Make no mistake: Lot is the prodigal here. Like the son in Jesus' parable, Lot takes his inheritance, one that he had from his time with his uncle/father and went on his way. He could have realized his blessings were from his time with Abe and said, "I see you have a special blessing from God and I turn my possessions over to you and let my men go so we can be at peace and I can share in the destiny God has for you." Instead, like the Prodigal, Lot took his share and went toward the debauchery of Fallen Flesh.

Later, after the kidnapping, Lot could have returned with his uncle, left the possessions to the king of Sodom, "come to his senses" as Jesus said of the Prodigal. Come to his uncle and sought refuge and forgiveness, offered to tend the flocks and serve the prophet of God.

Instead, the rescued nephew returned to the place of evil. Worse, that tent that was staked outside the city has been replaced by a house IN the city. The king has noticed that Abram will rescue his nephew so he has taken the man into the city to protect himself in case Abe wants to take his wealth with those fighting men who serve the prophet. He also knows he will be able to call on Abe if the city is threatened on the excuse of protecting Lot.

And Abe will do what it takes to protect Lot.

Matt Henry's opening:

INTRODUCTION TO GENESIS CHAPTER 18

We have an account in this chapter of another interview between God and Abraham, probably within a few days after the former, as the reward of his cheerful obedience to the law of circumcision. Here is,

I. The kind visit which God made him, and the kind entertainment which he gave to that visit, Ge 18:1-8.

II. The matters discoursed of between them.

1. The purposes of God's love concerning Sarah, Ge 18:9-15.

2. The purposes of God's wrath concerning Sodom.

(1.) The discovery God made to Abraham of his design to destroy Sodom, Ge 18:16-22.

(2.) The intercession Abraham made for Sodom, Ge 18:23-33.

Genesis 18:1 Now the Lord came to him by the holy tree of Mamre, when he was seated in the doorway of his tent in the middle of the day;
2 And lifting up his eyes, he saw three men before him; and seeing them, he went quickly to them from the door of the tent, and went down on his face to the earth;
3 And said, My Lord, if now I have grace in your eyes, do not go away from your servant:
4 Let me get water for washing your feet, and take your rest under the tree:
5 And let me get a bit of bread to keep up your strength, and after that you may go on your way: for this is why you have come to your servant.
And they said, Let it be so.
6 Then Abraham went quickly into the tent, and said to Sarah, Get three measures of meal straight away and make cakes.
7 And running to the herd, he took a young ox, soft and fat, and gave it to the servant and he quickly made it ready;
8 And he took butter and milk and the young ox which he had made ready and put it before them, waiting by them under the tree while they took food.
9 And they said to him, Where is Sarah your wife?
And he said, She is in the tent.
10 And he said, I will certainly come back to you in the spring, and Sarah your wife will have a son. And his words came to the ears of Sarah who was at the back of the tent-door.
11 Now Abraham and Sarah were very old, and Sarah was past the time for giving birth.
12 And Sarah, laughing to herself, said, Now that I am used up am I still to have pleasure, my husband himself being old?
13 And the Lord said, Why was Sarah laughing and saying, Is it possible for me, being old, to give birth to a child?
14 Is there any wonder which the Lord is not able to do? At the time I said, in the spring, I will come back to you, and Sarah will have a child.
15 Then Sarah said, I was not laughing; for she was full of fear.
And he said, No, but you were laughing.
16 And the men went on from there in the direction of Sodom; and Abraham went with them on their way.
17 And the Lord said, Am I to keep back from Abraham the knowledge of what I do;
18 Seeing that Abraham will certainly become a great and strong nation, and his name will be used by all the nations of the earth as a blessing?
19 For I have made him mine so that he may give orders to his children and those of his line after him, to keep the ways of the Lord, to do what is good and right: so that the Lord may do to Abraham as he has said.
20 And the Lord said, Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and their sin is very evil,
21 I will go down now, and see if their acts are as bad as they seem from the outcry which has come to me; and if they are not, I will see.
22 And the men, turning from that place, went on to Sodom: but Abraham was still waiting before the Lord.
23 And Abraham came near, and said, Will you let destruction come on the upright with the sinners?
24 If by chance there are fifty upright men in the town, will you give the place to destruction and not have mercy on it because of the fifty upright men?
25 Let such a thing be far from you, to put the upright to death with the sinner: will not the judge of all the earth do right?
26 And the Lord said, If there are fifty upright men in the town, I will have mercy on it because of them.
27 And Abraham answering said, Truly, I who am only dust, have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord:
28 If by chance there are five less than fifty upright men, will you give up all the town to destruction because of these five?
And he said, I will not give it to destruction if there are forty-five.
29 And again he said to him, By chance there may be forty there.
And he said, I will not do it if there are forty.
30 And he said, Let not the Lord be angry with me if I say, What if there are thirty there?
And he said, I will not do it if there are thirty.
31 And he said, See now, I have undertaken to put my thoughts before the Lord: what if there are twenty there?
And he said, I will have mercy because of the twenty.
32 And he said, O let not the Lord be angry and I will say only one word more: by chance there may be ten there.
And he said, I will have mercy because of the ten.
33 And the Lord went on his way when his talk with Abraham was ended, and Abraham went back to his place.

(BBE)

Patrick/Lowth/Whitby/Lowman Commentary:

The Lord appeared unto him The glory of the Lord, or the Divine Majesty, which the Jews call the Shechinah, as it had done lately Ge 17:1. And as the Lord then appeared to establish his covenant with him by circumcision, so some of the Jews imagine he again appeared to visit, comfort, and heal him, now that he was very sore of his circumcision: or rather, I should think, to testify, by his illustrious manifestation of his glory (ver. 2), his high approbation of Abraham’s ready obedience to so harsh a command. So the Jews themselves esteem it, and therefore think that, by receiving it, Abraham fulfilled that precept which goes just before it Ge 17:1, “be thou perfect.” Which may have some truth in it, if rightly understood: for his faith and obedience grew more perfect by submitting to this command; and was completed, when he sacrificed his son.
However this be, I think it is plain from verse 10, that this appearance of the Divine Majesty was not long after the former.
In the plains Or, the oaks of Mamre, mentioned before Ge 13:18. This place continued famous till the time of Constantine; both Jews, Gentiles, and Christians, meeting here once a year, not only for traffic, but for religion: Christians here calling upon God; and there being an altar here also, on which the gentiles sacrificed, and invoked the angels. Of which superstition Constantine being informed by his mother, he caused that altar to be demolished, and a church to be built in its place. (See Sozemen, lib. 2 cap 4 Euseb. In vita Constant, lib. 3 cap. 53.)
And he sat in the tent door To observe what strangers passed that way.
In the heat of the day; In the afternoon, when travelers sought for places of refreshment.

Note: Our concern in a discussion of our fallen nature leads us over a significant section of Abe's development to be discussed after this section as contrast to Lot's "life style choices"

Spurgeon:

Ver. 3-5 Abraham here became an example of hospitality, and thereby entertained angels unawares. He ran to meet the strangers, he saluted them respectfully, welcomed them heartily, and even made a favor to himself of their resting near his tent. Ungenerous spirits who never entertain either God's servants or the poor, miss many a blessing. May we never be a churlish household.

Matt Henry on the angels:

God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.

2. God graciously visits those in whom he has first raised the expectation of him, and manifests himself to those that wait for him. When Abraham was thus sitting, he saw three men coming towards him. These three men were three spiritual heavenly beings, now assuming human bodies, that they might be visible to Abraham, and conversable with him. Some think that they were all created angels, others that one of them was the Son of God, the angel of the covenant, whom Abraham distinguished from the rest (Ge 18:3), and who is called Jehovah, Ge 18:13. The apostle improves this for the encouragement of hospitality, Heb 13:2. Those that have been forward to entertain strangers have entertained angels, to their unspeakable honour and satisfaction. Where, upon a prudent and impartial judgment, we see no cause to suspect ill, charity teaches us to hope well and to show kindness accordingly. It is better to feed five drones, or wasps, than to starve one bee.

Again, I suspect one WAS the Angel of the Lord, the pre-incarnate Christ. Some suggest it was a materialization of the Trinity but the Holy Spirit has never taken physical form in any Scripture and we here have them all eating so it seems likely only one was Jesus and, yes, again, Abraham recognizes Him.

We already mentioned time has passed since that kidnapping and Abe must have heard rumors about his nephew, may even have had his men track down stories from caravans and other travelers and traders. He knows Lot hasn't quite lived up to whatever promise Abe once saw in him. He knows, too, that God hasn't mentioned one thing about Lot being in Sodom.

So. instead of pleading for Lot specifically, Abe pleads for the righteous people in the city. He seems certain there are other righteous ones there. There must be, right? it's a big city, plenty of humanity. Surely there are others there to save...

God gave Abraham a chance to plead for mercy for the lost. And Abe pleaded for mercy for he righteous. We need to see that. We need to realize Abe pleaded for the righteous so Lot might be saved, that Peter later calls Lot "righteous" because he WAS saved. We need to see Abe din't ask for a delay in the taking of evil from the world. he wanted mercy for those who God would love.

We live in a Society where we call for mercy for all because Christ made that call. Called for us to delay to harvesting for the staves from the wheat, to let God decide who was to be saved, who is actually saved and his Chosen. But we've given that mercy so long it has become misinterpreted, seen as a call for mercy because all will be saved or all are to be redeemed. We see delayed judgement as a sign there will be no judgement at all.

God has always delayed judgement. The Sodoms of the world go on for a long time. We have a Hollywood once referred to as Babylon. We have Sin City in this country, a now seldom used nickname for Las Vegas. Artist and comic creator Frank Miller used it as the name of an evil city in a graphic novel that became a movie with major stars engaged in a worship of debauchery both on the "good" and "bad" side. Actually, it engaged in the noir and now popular notion that we all have failings but we should root for the ruthless killers who have hearts of gold, who are capable of seeing all the evil around them and fighting evil with their own evil as heroes. The notion that your political candidate can be a ruthless insulter of minorities, an abuser of women and accused of defrauding thousands but he's better than the other person running. There's mercy and then there's pure foolishness. The reaction to each new fact as an excusable fraud. Denial.

Abe loved Lot but he had none of that denial thing. He would not plead for the man's life nor would he presume to saddle up his men and go to the rescue. When we begin to discuss the other events of
Abe's life below, we'll see how the Fallen Flesh can at least learn repentance and humility,
One other thing comes up: Sarah's faith. She has done some things she is ashamed of in trying to help God along with His plan. She has offered Hagar as the surrogate and gotten Ishmael out of the deal. There were no Petri dishes for sperm storage and no syringes for fertilization back then so Abraham had to violate his vows to her to produce that first son.

Ge 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had given him no children; and she had a servant, a woman of Egypt whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said to Abram, See, the Lord has not let me have children; go in to my servant, for I may get a family through her. And Abram did as Sarai said.
3 So after Abram had been living for ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai took Hagar, her Egyptian servant, and gave her to Abram for his wife.
4 And he went in to Hagar and she became with child, and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for her master's wife.
5 And Sarai said to Abram, May my wrong be on you: I gave you my servant for your wife and when she saw that she was with child, she no longer had any respect for me: may the Lord be judge between you and me.
6 And Abram said, The woman is in your power; do with her whatever seems good to you. And Sarai was cruel to her, so that she went running away from her.
7 And an angel of the Lord came to her by a fountain of water in the waste land, by the fountain on the way to Shur.
8 And he said, Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am running away from Sarai, my master's wife.
9 And the angel said to her, Go back, and put yourself under her authority.
10 And the angel of the Lord said, Your seed will be greatly increased so that it may not be numbered.
11 And the angel of the Lord said, See, you are with child and will give birth to a son, to whom you will give the name Ishmael, because the ears of the Lord were open to your sorrow.
12 And he will be like a mountain ass among men; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him, and he will keep his place against all his brothers.
13 And to the Lord who was talking with her she gave this name, You are a God who is seen; for she said, Have I not even here in the waste land had a vision of God and am still living?
14 So that fountain was named, Fountain of Life and Vision: it is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 And Hagar gave birth to a child, the son of Abram, to whom Abram gave the name of Ishmael.
16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.
(BBE)

But Ishmael was a problem, brought up as the son but born out of place. Because god had one other condition for his covenant with Abraham.

Ge 17:1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord came to him, and said, I am God, Ruler of all; go in my ways and be upright in all things,
2 And I will make an agreement between you and me, and your offspring will be greatly increased.
3 And Abram went down on his face on the earth, and the Lord God went on talking with him, and said,
4 As for me, my agreement is made with you, and you will be the father of nations without end.
5 No longer will your name be Abram, but Abraham, for I have made you the father of a number of nations.
6 I will make you very fertile, so that nations will come from you and kings will be your offspring.
7 And I will make between me and you and your seed after you through all generations, an eternal agreement to be a God to you and to your seed after you.
8 And to you and to your seed after you, I will give the land in which you are living, all the land of Canaan for an eternal heritage; and I will be their God.
9 And God said to Abraham, On your side, you are to keep the agreement, you and your seed after you through all generations.
10 And this is the agreement which you are to keep with me, you and your seed after you: every male among you is to undergo circumcision.
11 In the flesh of your private parts you are to undergo it, as a mark of the agreement between me and you.
12 Every male among you, from one generation to another, is to undergo circumcision when he is eight days old, with every servant whose birth takes place in your house, or for whom you gave money to someone of another country, and not of your seed.
13 He who comes to birth in your house and he who is made yours for a price, all are to undergo circumcision; so that my agreement may be marked in your flesh, an agreement for all time.
14 And any male who does not undergo circumcision will be cut off from his people: my agreement has been broken by him.
15 And God said, As for Sarai, your wife, from now her name will be not Sarai, but Sarah.
16 And I will give her a blessing so that you will have a son by her: truly my blessing will be on her, and she will be the mother of nations: kings of peoples will be her offspring.
17 Then Abraham went down on his face, and laughing, said in his heart, May a man a hundred years old have a child? will Sarah, at ninety years old, give birth?
18 And Abraham said to God, If only Ishmael's life might be your care!
19 And God said, Not so; but Sarah, your wife, will have a son, and you will give him the name Isaac, and I will make my agreement with him for ever and with his seed after him.
20 As for Ishmael, I have given ear to your prayer: truly I have given him my blessing and I will make him fertile and give him great increase; he will be the father of twelve chiefs, and I will make him a great nation.
21 But my agreement will be with Isaac, to whom Sarah will give birth a year from this time.
22 And having said these words, God went up from Abraham.
23 And Abraham took Ishmael, his son, and all whose birth had taken place in his house, and all his servants whom he had made his for a price, every male of his house, and on that very day he gave them circumcision in the flesh of their private parts as God had said to him.
24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he underwent circumcision.
25 And Ishmael, his son, was thirteen years old when he underwent circumcision.
26 Abraham and Ishmael, his son, underwent circumcision on that very day.
(BBE)

The flesh was fallen and god made it clear that He had to put His mark on that flesh: Circumcision. Ishmael was Abe's son, but born before that branding. He received it at 13 which would become the age of adulthood for every son of Abraham afterwards as circumcision would become the ritual scarring of the infant. But Ishmael was not born under the mark of the pact. God agreed to bless him, but withheld the honor seemingly due any firstborn. Ishmael was loved and blessed, but he didn't have the special place of the firstborn under the completed pact.

A. W. Tozer in Voice of the Prophet, writes of the opening verse 17:1:

"...I feel unworthy, because here is found the beating heart of living religion. Abram had no Bible, no church, no religious conviction, no Bible teacher, no evangelist, no hymnal, no Bible school. He had only his empty, hungry heart and god. This goes back to the roots of true religion from which sprung all denominations, all churches, all forms of worship, all thise things we take for granted-organs and pianos and seers and preachers. Abram had none of those things.

"Abram was a man who met God.

"Father Abraham stands fr every man, and he is the father of all those who believe. He had no religious problems, or if he did, he took them straight to god. he talked to God. (How many people are in Hell today because they fooled themselves into thinking they had a religious problem, when it was a sin problem and they had no desire to get rid of it.)

"Abram met god in a living encounter. Notice that God stepped over the threshold into Abram's experience, into his cognitive experience. God met Abram face to face."

This next paragraph explains why I have been stressing so much the point that Jesus appears in the OT, especially in the beginning, in genesis when God is revealing His Plan.

"With every man of God, especially the prophet, it all begins by consciously being aware of God. This is the starting point. It begins with a divine encounter where God steps across the threshold into our experience."

It appears that the Holy Spirit acted differently toward humanity at that time. Jesus himself stepped into the picture, here referred to as God, then later seen as angel but still, the same person, the same one Abe saw when he was much younger, the same one who launched him on his trip to Cannan.

Our Fallen Flesh can find not safety outside of god but we refuse to seek One we can't perceive so He always makes the first move. As Tozer later puts it :"The living, vibrant, audible Word of lord came to Abram."

Tozer sees it as the Spirit speaking, and it may be the case, but the word "appeared" makes me want to add the other word "visible" to Tozer's sentence in Describing the "Word" here.

The man of God takes the mark on the flesh, one that hurts, hurts, hurts. He will remember so long as he lives that the flesh carries the memory of falling, that we are scarred for life by that fact, that Abraham's people are set aside to live holy lives and to follow God.

But, for now, we need to see where that fallen state leads without repentance. So our next stop is Sodom.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

We have A Lot to Talk About

Since our concern is Fallen Flesh, we have one other person in the drama of Abraham's to discuss: Lot.

Ge 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
Ge 12:4 ¶ So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram [was] seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.
Ge 12:5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.

Lot seems to be like a son to Abraham and Sarai. Or, perhaps, Lot wanted to be their son.

We note that the family had wealth and that the wealth increased during their association. Perhaps Lot noticed Abraham's abilities with money or the way goods came to him, even in a bad situation like Egypt. He certainly noticed that his own wealth increases as he walked beside his uncle.

Perhaps he was the child they hadn't had, one who is able and their own blood since we will later find out Abraham and Sarah are related.

Ge 13:1 And Abram went up out of Egypt with his wife and all he had, and Lot with him, and they came in to the South.
2 Now Abram had great wealth of cattle and silver and gold.
3 And travelling on from the South, he came to Beth-el, to the place where his tent had been before, between Beth-el and Ai;
4 To the place where he had made his first altar, and there Abram gave worship to the name of the Lord.
5 And Lot, who went with him, had flocks and herds and tents;
6 So that the land was not wide enough for the two of them: their property was so great that there was not room for them together.
7 And there was an argument between the keepers of Abram's cattle and the keepers of Lot's cattle: at that time the Canaanites and Perizzites were still living in the land.
8 Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no argument between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are brothers.
9 Is not all the land before you? then let us go our separate ways: if you go to the left, I will go to the right; or if you take the right, I will go to the left.
10 And Lot, lifting up his eyes and looking an the valley of Jordan, saw that it was well watered everywhere, before the Lord had sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah; it was like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, on the way to Zoar.
11 So Lot took for himself all the valley of Jordan, and went to the east, and they were parted from one another.
12 Abram went on living in the land of Canaan, and Lot went to the lowland towns, moving his tent as far as Sodom.
13 Now the men of Sodom were evil, and great sinners before the Lord.
14 And the Lord had said to Abram, after Lot was parted from him, From this place where you are take a look to the north and to the south, to the east and to the west:
15 For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed for ever.
16 And I will make your children like the dust of the earth, so that if the dust of the earth may be numbered, then will your children be numbered.
17 Come, go through all the land from one end to the other for I will give it to you.
18 And Abram, moving his tent, came and made his living-place by the holy tree of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and made an altar there to the Lord.

(BBE)

A Schism The family church of Abraham is divided. Lot sees the good land and says he'll go that way and Abraham lets him and only then does God speak to Abraham.

Something was wrong with the association and God allowed the personal conflicts to separate them.

Something was wrong with Lot.

Recall how Jesus waits until Judas left to offer communion.

God reaffirms his covenant now, just now AFTER Lot has left. While Lot was with him, Abraham had the "wrong" son and Lot may well have stayed to gain the land Abraham now knows he will inherit. God had another destiny for Lot.

We see so many schisms today since there are so many churches and so much wrong teaching floods the television and internet. People, like Lot, get seduced by the allure of a nice looking doctrine which says to them that they can have anything they want, that God must be behind those successful people simply because they are successful, the same mistake make centuries later by the Jews during Jesus' time on Earth.

And Lot showed his lack of judgement looking only at the cover of the book, the water and beauty of the plains, not 13 Now the men of Sodom were evil, and great sinners before the Lord.

And he got kidnapped for the effort:

Ge 14:1 Now in the days of Amraphel, king of Shinar, Arioch, king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim,
2 They made war with Bera, king of Sodom, and with Birsha, king of Gomorrah, Shinab, king of Admah, and Shemeber, king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (which is Zoar).
3 All these came together in the valley of Siddim (which is the Salt Sea).
4 For twelve years they were under the rule of Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they put off his control.
5 And in the fourteenth year, Chedorlaomer and the kings who were on his side, overcame the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim,
6 And the Horites in their mountain Seir, driving them as far as El-paran, which is near the waste land.
7 Then they came back to En-mishpat (which is Kadesh), making waste all the country of the Amalekites and of the Amorites living in Hazazon-tamar.
8 And the king of Sodom with the king of Gomorrah and the king of Admah and the king of Zeboiim and the king of Bela (that is Zoar), went out, and put their forces in position in the valley of Siddim,
9 Against Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, and Tidal, king of Goiim, and Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Ellasar: four kings against the five.
10 Now the valley of Siddim was full of holes of sticky earth; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were put to flight and came to their end there, but the rest got away to the mountain.
11 And the four kings took all the goods and food from Sodom and Gomorrah and went on their way.
12 And in addition they took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who was living in Sodom, and all his goods.
13 And one who had got away from the fight came and gave word of it to Abram the Hebrew, who was living by the holy tree of Mamre, the Amorite, the brother of Eshcol and Aner, who were friends of Abram.
14 And Abram, hearing that his brother's son had been made a prisoner, took a band of his trained men, three hundred and eighteen of them, sons of his house, and went after them as far as Dan.
15 And separating his forces by night, he overcame them, putting them to flight and going after them as far as Hobah, which is on the north side of Damascus.
16 And he got back all the goods, and Lot, his brother's son, with his goods and the women and the people.
17 And when he was coming back after putting to flight Chedorlaomer and the other kings, he had a meeting with the king of Sodom in the valley of Shaveh, that is, the King's Valley.
18 And Melchizedek, king of Salem, the priest of the Most High God, took bread and wine,
19 And blessing him, said, May the blessing of the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth, be on Abram:
20 And let the Most High God be praised, who has given into your hands those who were against you. Then Abram gave him a tenth of all the goods he had taken.
21 And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the prisoners and take the goods for yourself.
22 But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have taken an oath to the Lord, the Most High God, maker of heaven and earth,
23 That I will not take so much as a thread or the cord of a shoe of yours; so that you may not say, I have given wealth to Abram:
24 Give me nothing but the food which the fighting-men who went with me have had; but let Aner and Eshcol and Mamre have their part of the goods.

(BBE)

things to note:

Abe goes to save his nephew and his people. We read almost as an aside that there were women with them. We see also that the women were looked on as goods. Perhaps they were not just Lot's women but all the women of the towns to be held for ransom as may have been intended for Lot since his uncle was well-known by this time to have money. Or maybe the women would be kept as whores and concubines.

Notice Lot had not fought in the war, was merely camped outside the city but being in friendship with the evil men was cause enough for him to be taken. The kings at war didn't and still don't care who you are or your intent. If you are somehow in the scope of the battlefield, you are fair game.

In the opinion from that time, Lot being taken with the women is an insult to him.

Moses tells us that Abe went with his "trained men". He has seen the area around him and knows the various kings are not to be trusted and he already has a personal army with him to protect his goods and keep his family safe. Anyone who works for him has been trained to fight. For those rich enough it is a very good idea to protect what God has given them but please note, Abe has made sacrifice on altars in various areas. He has associated with a king he feared which now explains his band of trained men. But Abe uses the army not to attack anyone for his own profit, but to act in protection of his nephew, his surrogate son.

And Abe takes nothing for himself after the conquest so that the new king of Sodom cannot be seen as an ally so Abe will owe him nothing.

In the midst is the arrival of the king of Salem who greets the battered army of Abe with bread and wine and a blessing. And he receives a tenth from Abe. This is called an appearance of Christ, a preincarnation of the Final Flesh.

Salem has been taken as a shortening of Jerusalem which was used in Stephen King's Salem's Lot. That book and movie were about an infestation of vampires which eventually took over the small town Salem's Lot but also the story of a man who lost his love to the vampires because she paused to got back and who in the current events of the book has fled the city and is fighting the evil.

Which was King retelling the Sodom story.

Which opens the gate for our next posts

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

JESUS AND THE BIG MISTAKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le-TG4sRRiQ

Time to dwell on our Fallen Flesh.

Part of humanity seems to have an enduring ability to fail.

Top to bottom, we manage to fail.

We let people down and they let us down. We maintain a standard of excellence for ourselves that we expect others to live up to. We also maintain a standard for them that they can't possibly achieve.

And sometimes for ourselves. Those are the times we say, "If only I had done that..."

This makes up a significant part of our lives. Blaming ourselves: blaming others: blaming...

We must realize that this is part of the lie.

Only God is capable of perfection and when we start the "blame thing" we forget no one, not the people in high office or in the land of the rich, not the people who live very poorly and are supposed to have some kind of spiritual growth because of it, not the middle classes that do so much work and support so many programs for health and help to the whole society.

The demand for perfection from our rulers leaves us continually unhappy with leadership and leads so many of them to think they actually are gods or are god-like and to act as if they can dictate any program or spending for themselves or for various programs with little regard for the effect on their people. It leads to the discontent that forms revolutions. Revolts occur and the new rulership decides it too must have an iron fist of rule to suppress those who would revolt against them. It leads to ideologues who believe their system of economics or laws or ideals are the only way when every previous ideology has been proven wrong. It led many of ur current leadership who watched our economy fail under a philosphy of regulation-free economic systems such as the banks and markets and insurance companies, following Adam hall's notion that the Market will correct itself to, as the media has taken to saying of their candidate, "double down" on the error and blame the few controls which have temporarily rescued the system despite their obstructionism, for the fact the recovery hasn't been fast enough. They now wish to crash the US economy again using the same type of housing loan requirements and and repeating the errors in auto loans. If we think the rich are not well aware that this idea will perhaps destroy the US for good, we need only look at the number of them who are running as rapidly as they can from Trump. And the number buying homes in other countries which are likely not to be destroyed by another banking crisis or have governments of their own so corrupt the money will buy temporary safety. While, in the meantime, the presidential race is fueled by candidates pointing out the imperfections of their opponents as if that somehow qualifies them for the office.

The demand for perfection from others has leveraged the US population into political segments who often vote on onte issue:abortion, guns, civil rights, defense, economy,

The demand for perfection, fixing the meal right, bringing home enough money, disciplining the children correctly or at all, being good at golf for the team sports at the job, being the perfect cook, having the housework always up to par, being the neighborhood pal or in on the gossip with all the wives or husbands. being the bedroom artist, the friend and lover, the one who is there all for every soccer game, every basketball-football-baseball-hockey moment. leads to more family disaster, more divorces more children with one parent than almost anything.

"It's my belief
Pride is the chief cause
In the de-cline
Of the number of husbands and wives."

"Husbands and Wives"
Roger Miller
1966

The demand for perfection leads us to feel pressure for performance at every turn: business; sports even the casual weekend tennis match or weeknight bowling match; the bedroom; the part of our hair, the cut of our clothes; the car we drive; the name on our suit's label or the pocket of our jeans; on a school test; with our friends in the things we know, the places we've seen, the women or men we date: money for which the concern leads to the belief that there is never enough, even when we have gold-plated toilets; finally, life itself, can we live with who we are, what we've done, the side effects of the disease we have, the pain, anguish, the mental deterioration. The demand so often leads to suicide, the killing of self by gun or poisons of some sort or merely by seeking after so much that our true self dies and is replaced by a monster of greed and self-interest.

WE live in fear because of it. Fear we will not be good enough, fear we will have to deal with something we can't handle. Fear we will die before our dreams come true.

I stopped in the midst of the Opening story on Abraham because he is suddenly at that point of failure, the big mistake. I mentioned God had appeared to him, As he appeared to Adam and Eve, toe Enoch, to Cain. I want it firmly in our minds: Jesus was, is always there and we always have had grace, unmerited, unearned, undeserved grace.

Grace extended to the "holy line" Noah, Enoch. the other "fallen line" Cain and his children, because eboth lines were Fallen Flesh, from the grace extended to Adam and Eve,

Jesus pops up time and again in Genesis nd we come to inderstand His grace reaches back there as well.the power of His sacrifice to cover ALL sins means it reaches back to the beginning and the notion that there will always a remnant (("I have preserved a remnant" Isa 65;9,
see also Romans 11;5, Genesis 54;7, Noah from Genesis 7 or go to http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Remnant) of believers. Realizing the depths of this mercy we understand even more profoundly Jesus' notion of the tares and the wheat.

Mt 13:24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:
25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.
26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.
27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?
28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?
29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.
30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.
(KJV)

While this is often aptly applied to the Church, still it has application in Genesis and really throughout history, since God always intended Israel would evangelize as he meant it for the Church as well. A spiritual obedience to the decree that man would have a nomadic existence after Eden. It is hard to tell the wheat from the tares when we wheat behave like tares and look just like them. Harder still when the tares are busy looking like wheat.

And we have that role reversal here:

Ge 12:10 And because there was little food to be had in that land, he went down into Egypt.
11 Now when he came near to Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, Truly, you are a fair woman and beautiful to the eye;
12 And I am certain that when the men of Egypt see you, they will say, This is his wife: and they will put me to death and keep you.
13 Say, then, that you are my sister, and so it will be well with me because of you, and my life will be kept safe on your account.
14 And so it was that when Abram came into Egypt, the men of Egypt, looking on the woman, saw that she was fair.
15 And Pharaoh's great men, having seen her, said words in praise of her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into Pharaoh's house.
16 And because of her, he was good to Abram, and he had sheep and oxen and asses, and men-servants and women-servants, and camels.
17 And the Lord sent great troubles on Pharaoh's house because of Sarai, Abram's wife.
18 Then Pharaoh sent for Abram, and said, What have you done to me? why did you not say that she was your wife?
19 Why did you say that she was your sister? so that I took her for my wife: now, take your wife and go on your way.
20 And Pharaoh gave orders to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all he had.
(BBE)

Jamieson, etc:

14. when Abram was come into Egypt--It appears from the monuments of that country that at the time of Abram's visit a monarchy had existed for several centuries. The seat of government was in the Delta, the most northern part of the country, the very quarter in which Abram must have arrived. They were a race of shepherd-kings, in close alliance with the people of Canaan.

Adam Clarke:

Verse 15. The woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.] Pharaoh appears to have been the common appellative of the Cuthite shepherd kings of Egypt, who had conquered this land, as is conjectured, about seventy-two years before this time. The word is supposed to signify king in the ancient Egyptian language. If the meaning be sought in the Hebrew, the root erp para signifies to be free or disengaged, a name which such freebooters as the Cuthite shepherds might naturally assume. All the kings of Egypt bore this name till the commencement of the Grecian monarchy, after which they were called Ptolemies.

Matt Poole;

Ver. 15. The princes also of Pharaoh, i.e. the officers and courtiers; whose great design was to gain their prince's favour by gratifying his lusts.

The woman was taken into Pharaoh's house, i.e. taken and brought, one word for two. So the word take is used Ge 15:9,10; Ex 18:2; 27:20, &c. Not to his bed, but the house of his women, where they were purified and prepared for the king's presence and society, as Es 2:8,9, that in due time she might be his concubine or wife. Thus even the ceremonies of courts serve the providence of God, and give opportunity for working her deliverance.

So we have the situation. Abraham has lied. Sarai has lied also. Abe has compounded the lie by letting Sarai be taken as a mate to Pharaoh. He has gotten riches out of the deal so telling the truth n ow would cost him the riches, and maybe his life which he sought to preserve by lying. He could lose his wife and everything now.

But keep in mind this is a lapse in faith. He has lost focus as has Sarai. God promised to make his the father of nations and he has yet to have a child. Fear has corrupted faith. He has not trusted
god and has dragged everyon involved into god's anger.

Matt Henry's take on it:

Ver. 14.

II. The deliverance of Sarai from this danger. For if God did not deliver us, many a time, by prerogative, out of those straits and distresses which we bring ourselves into by our own sin and folly, and which therefore we could not expect any deliverance from by promise, we should soon be ruined, nay, we should have been ruined long before this. He deals not with us according to our deserts.

1. God chastised Pharaoh, and so prevented the progress of his sin. Note, Those are happy chastisements that hinder us in a sinful way, and effectually bring us to our duty, and particularly to the duty of restoring that which we have wrongfully taken and detained. Observe, Not Pharaoh only, but his house, was plagued, probably those princes especially that had commended Sarai to Pharaoh. Note, Partners in sin are justly made partners in the punishment. Those that serve others' lusts must expect to share in their plagues. We are not told particularly what these plagues were; but doubtless there was something in the plagues themselves, or some explication added to them, sufficient to convince them that it was for Sarai's sake that they were thus plagued.

2. Pharaoh reproved Abram, and then dismissed him with respect.

(1.) The reproof was calm, but very just: What is this that thou hast done? What an improper thing! How unbecoming a wise and good man! Note, If those that profess religion do that which is unfair and disingenuous, especially if they say that which borders upon a lie, they must expect to hear of it, and have reason to thank those that will tell them of it. We find a prophet of the Lord justly reproved and upbraided by a heathen ship-master, Jon 1:6. Pharaoh reasons with him: Why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? intimating that, if he had known this, he would not have taken her into his house. Note, It is a fault too common among good people to entertain suspicions of others beyond what there is cause for. We have often found more of virtue, honour, and conscience, in some people than we thought they possessed; and it ought to be a pleasure to us to be thus disappointed, as Abram was here, who found Pharaoh to be a better man than he expected. Charity teaches us to hope the best.

(2.) The dismission was kind and very generous. He restored him his wife without offering any injury to her honour: Behold thy wife, take her, Ge 12:19. Note, Those that would prevent sin must remove the temptation, or get out of the way of it. He also sent him away in peace, and was so far from any design to kill him, as he apprehended, that he took particular care of him. Note, We often perplex and ensnare ourselves with fears which soon appear to have been altogether groundless. We often fear where no fear is. We fear the fury of the oppressor, as though he were ready to destroy, when really there is no danger, Isa 51:13. It would have been more for Abram's credit and comfort to have told the truth at first; for, after all, honesty is the best policy. Nay, it is said (Ge 12:20), Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him, that is,

[1.] He charged them not to injure him in any thing. Note, It is not enough for those in authority to do no hurt themselves, but they must restrain their servants, and those about them, from doing hurt. Or,

[2.] He appointed them, when Abram was disposed to return home after the famine, to conduct him safely out of the country, as his convoy. Probably he was alarmed by the plagues (Ge 12:17), and inferred from them that Abram was a particular favourite of Heaven, and therefore, through fear of their return, took special care he should receive no injury in his country. Note, God has often raised up friends for his people, by making men know that it is at their peril if they hurt them. It is a dangerous thing to offend Christ's little ones. Mt 18:6. To this passage, among others, the Psalmist refers, Ps 105:13-15, He reproved kings for their sakes, saying, Touch not my anointed. Perhaps if Pharaoh had not sent him away, he would have been tempted to stay in Egypt and to forget the land of promise. Note, Sometimes God makes use of the enemies of his people to convince them, and remind them, that this world is not their rest, but that they must think of departing.

Lastly, Observe a resemblance between this deliverance of Abram out of Egypt and the deliverance of his seed thence: 430 years after Abram went into Egypt on occasion of a famine they went thither on occasion of a famine also; he was fetched out with great plagues on Pharaoh, so were they; as Abram was dismissed by Pharaoh, and enriched with the spoil of the Egyptians, so were they. For God's care of his people is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.

Abram lets God down, he has made am mistake which he certanly learned from and certainly said to himself, as we all so often do, "Well, I'll never do that again."

Ge 20:1 And Abraham went on his way from there to the land of the South, and was living between Kadesh and Shur, in Gerar.
2 And Abraham said of Sarah, his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.
3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream in the night, and said to him, Truly you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken; for she is a man's wife.
4 Now Abimelech had not come near her; and he said, Lord, will you put to death an upright nation?
5 Did he not say to me himself, She is my sister? and she herself said, He is my brother: with an upright heart and clean hands have I done this.
6 And God said to him in the dream, I see that you have done this with an upright heart, and I have kept you from sinning against me: for this reason I did not let you come near her.
7 So now, give the man back his wife, for he is a prophet, and let him say a prayer for you, so your life may be safe: but if you do not give her back, be certain that death will come to you and all your house.
8 So Abimelech got up early in the morning and sent for all his servants and gave them word of these things, and they were full of fear.
9 Then Abimelech sent for Abraham, and said, What have you done to us? what wrong have I done you that you have put on me and on my kingdom so great a sin? You have done to me things which are not to be done.
10 And Abimelech said to Abraham, Why did you do this thing?
11 And Abraham said, Because it seemed to me that there was no fear of God in this place, and that they might put me to death because of my wife.
12 And, in fact, she is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife:
13 And when God sent me wandering from my father's house, I said to her, Let this be the sign of your love for me; wherever we go, say of me, He is my brother.
14 Then Abimelech gave to Abraham sheep and oxen and men-servants and women-servants, and gave him back his wife Sarah.
15 And Abimelech said, See, all my land is before you; take whatever place seems good to you.
16 And he said to Sarah, See, I have given to your brother a thousand bits of silver so that your wrong may be put right; now your honour is clear in the eyes of all.
17 Then Abraham made prayer to God, and God made Abimelech well again, and his wife and his women-servants, so that they had children.
18 For the Lord had kept all the women of the house of Abimelech from having children, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

(BBE)

What???!!! Didn't he learn anything?? This is years later, God has added to his covenant with Abram and the man is now Abraham. Sarah is his wife. They have been nomadic, settling here and there, Sodom and Gomorrah have just been destroyed. The rewards of sin blatantly obvious. They were not yet parents, so the same idea applies that God had not yet fulfilled His promise and so they were meant to live on until it was done.

Still we again had the lie, the same lie, and the new king receives appropriate punishment and will later beg Abraham to stay on the country of the Philistines so God will bless them for housing him.

Two things strike me: 1) obviously his grandson Jacob would learn nothing from this story: 2) no matter our sin, no matter our tendency to actually REPEAT that sin or our refusal to acknowledge we have a special destiny given us by God and are His forever once we accept that destiny in faith, God remains faithful. he will reserve us beyond our sin. Eden proved it, Noah proved it. Abraham proved it.

Make no mistake of your own, these moments were his big mistake and the grace of Jesus washed back to preserve him and Sarah because of the promise of God.

Sin can separate us from God no matter what but He will always find a way to bring us back if we accept the offer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfkhqpl81NA

http://christianpersecutionindia.blogspot.com/2016_08_01_archive.html

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26, 2016

Christian persecution in India surges in first half of 2016; radical Hindus see threat to culture, identity

Hindu radicals are intensifying their persecution of Christians across India with no end in sight.
In the first half of 2016 alone, the authorities recorded at least 134 incidents of violence against Christians in India compared with 147 incidents in all of 2014 and 177 in 2015, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India's Religious Liberty Commission, citing an independent report.
What's even more alarming, according to the Commission, is that the cases recorded from Jan. 1 to June 30 this year were "just a fraction of the violence on the ground," the Gospel Herald reports.
The persecution is widespread with the cases of violence against Christians reported in 21 of India's 29 states. Uttar Pradesh topped the list with 25 cases.
The report attributed the rise in Christian persecution cases to the success achieved by Hindu radical groups in associating local cultural and customs legislation with Hindu religious practices, denouncing everything non-Hindu as a threat to their culture and identity.
In one area, "religious fanatics attacked a church and tried to set a pastor and his pregnant wife on fire after thrashing them," the report states.