I am not saying that Genesis 13 is the first occasion of homosexuality, but rather the first recorded occasion in the Bible. This is the situation where Abraham and Lot go their separate ways. And Abraham allows Lot to choose. Lot chooses to go down into the very well-watered plain where the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and several others were. This is an editorial comment made by Moses under the inspiration of God.
Now, I do not know if you have heard of this before, but there is a rule called, "The Law of First Mention." This rule, or law says, "The first instance in which a subject is commented upon in the Bible sets the tone for the rest of the scriptural teaching on it."
The same thing happens here in Genesis 13:13. Notice what it said. "It (Sodom) is exceedingly wicked, and sinful." That is bad. That is really bad. It is not just iniquitous, or just a transgression, but it is exceedingly wicked and sinful.
And then, it does not say, "against the body," or "against other men," or "against one's wife, or one's parents, or one's children," but it says that this sin is exceedingly wicked and sinful against God Himself.
Homosexuality is a sin directly against God. It is not simply a lifestyle choice. It is not a private matter that does not hurt anybody else. Let us put down a few reasons why that it is so exceedingly wicked and sinful.
First of all, homosexuality breaks God's seventh commandment against sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage.
The second is that homosexuality flouts God's creation of mankind as male and female. And were we to go back to Genesis 1, we would see (and we will see this later on) that the first commandment that He gave to Adam and Eve, as recorded in Scripture is, "Be fruitful, and multiply."
And so He has made man male and female for the primary reason of producing seed—producing more people—adding, therefore, to the potential Sons of God.
The third is that homosexuality perverts the natural use of the human body. I do not want to go into this. But God made things a certain way to work a certain way. Homosexuality perverts that extremely. We will also see this "natural use" comes back in the New Testament.
But the most damaging of the reasons why homosexuality is against God Himself is that it distorts, and ultimately destroys the person from having a proper relationship with God their Creator.
Take a homosexual man. (Men are homosexual more often than women.) They think of other men in sexual terms. You do not have to think very long in terms of thinking of God as a Father—a male figure, which is primarily the way that He has chosen to reveal Himself to us.
You can see quickly how homosexuality can distort this man's image of God, as well as his potential Older Brother, Jesus Christ—Someone more on an "equal" plane as a brother than as a Father.
You can see how this lifestyle can distort his understanding of Jesus Christ. It would work the same way for lesbians, but I do not think that I need to go any further for you to understand how it would distort things.
Homosexuals eventually get things all backwards. Everything is turned around and twisted. Homosexuality distorts what a person understands about men and masculinity, women and femininity, and the God who created them male and female, and His divinity.
When one is steeped in sin as vile as this, it twists one's understanding of right and wrong. You cannot dispute otherwise. It makes understanding God's mind, and thus His way, nearly impossible if everything is twisted and backward.
This is an echo of Genesis 13:13 where it said that this sin is exceedingly wicked and sinful against the Lord. It had come before God's face, and He was determined to destroy it. In verse 23, they had gone out, and sent Lot to Zoar:
Did God really mean what He said, when He told the Israelitish nations this? Our Israelitish nations—our many cities, states, and provinces—would do well to consider what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah because of the sin of sodomy, and other sins and perversions. Because sodomy was so prevalent, Genesis 19 mentions that it involved all the people—from every quarter. "All the people from every quarter" does not mean that every last person was involved personally in homosexuality. But all were guilty of the sin of homosexuality by extension—if they condoned it and if they did not rid it from their communities. And then God destroyed both those cities, and all the inhabitants of those cities, that which grew upon the ground; and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.
Now, Jude wrote in verse 7 that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the adjacent towns (that likewise gave themselves over to the sensual perversions) was not only a punishment, but also set forth an example for all of us down through history—to know what will definitely happen if we allow such perversions in our nations. Genesis 13:13 tells of the people of Canaan being completely submerged in depravity. Homosexuality was so prevalent that it was made into a religious rite there. And, for such abominations, God sentenced the Canaanites to death.
God warned the Israelite that, when He had delivered the wicked Canaanites before them, they were to make no covenant with them. Israel's later failure to execute the judgment that God demanded ultimately caused their own downfall, and they received judgment for the same thing. Sodomy promotes idolatry, invites false gods, nurtures apostasy, and spawns addition perversions—first those who indulge in its lusts and evils, and ultimately the nation that permits it to continue unchallenged. So not only are the individuals who partake in these perversions going to, and are, receiving penalties for it—but the nation itself is held responsible.
At least you have to say for what the Bible says about Lot that he was troubled, vexed, tormented, tortured by what was going on around him, even though he chose unwisely, foolishly to live within it. So Lot appears to have had a measure of faith, but his approach to living was quite a bit different from Abraham's.
So Lot left Egypt, but apparently Egypt never left Lot. It shows he was an upright man, a good man. He was a great deal like the Israelites who came out of Egypt. The fact that he chose to go in that direction toward Sodom and Gomorrah rather than resolving the problem that arose between his herdsmen and the herdsmen of Abraham, and instead choosing the ground that was like Egypt, or rather than return to Abraham and allowing him to make the choice, shows us a very great deal about Lot and his approach to life.
Does it not appear to you that he was a man of some faith, and at least intellectually, he wanted to follow the ways of God, but he wanted to do it with one foot in the world. He was not like Abraham. He consciously chose to separate himself from within the context of what was being worked out at that time.
Things today are a little bit different than they were in Abraham’s day, that is, what God is working out. God is teaching us something here. The man of true faith separates himself as far as he can possibly get from the world. The person whose faith is weak, though he does have some faith, gets as close to the edge of the cliff as he possibly can get, but still tries to somehow keep God [unclear]. Now Lot seems to have compensated and in some way justified what he was doing in Sodom by preaching to these people and scolding them for their sins. But he never entirely broke away from that way of life himself.
It says that he was tormented by the things that he saw in Sodom and Gomorrah. What does that mean? That means that he clearly understood about sin. It does not seem as though the Sodomites were concerned at all, but Lot was. He understood sin. He understood that these people were off the mark. Though he was not wicked, he did nothing to remove himself from it. There is the problem. He lingered. See, he was willing to coexist with it.
Pay very close attention to this because Lot knew—he knew when he made these choices, he knew of the awful conditions in the city even before he got there.
What is the least important aspect of seeing the faith? Eyesight. What is God beginning to tell us here? He is beginning to tell us that Lot lived by sight, not by faith. And even though God saved him, the man was what we would call today "carnal." Converted, but carnal. Just like Paul called the Corinthians in I Corinthians 3, he told them, "You are yet carnal." These were converted people. That is the way Lot was. So Lot lifted up his eyes, he saw the beauty of the land, saw that it would produce wealth, and he chose to ignore the evil that was plainly visible to anyone who cared to look at it.
As we begin this study on righteousness, we are going to start with someone we can all learn a lot from (pun intended). Please turn to Genesis 19. And as we reflect on Lot's life, what comes to mind right out the gate? We no doubt think about the poor choice he made in Genesis 13 when he separated from Abraham. He journeyed east and he pitched his tent even as far as Sodom, we read. This was no small mistake because he chose to be living so close to men that God describes in Genesis 13:13 as "exceedingly wicked and sinful." This is where he chose to dwell and place his tent.
