Leadership Thought: Who Says the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Was Unfair?

Dear Friends,

Last night at our small group meeting we studied Genesis 19, the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The story is a hard message to preach because it is a hard message to hear. 

Why would a loving God wipe out everyone in two cities except for Lot and his family? We declare “that isn't fair.”  We surmise, “There must have been a few more families in those two cities worth saving.”  “I thought God was loving and merciful, and I don’t understand how He could have done such a thing.” 

The answer is that God is loving and merciful, but He is also just and fair.

The fact is that it was only because of God’s mercy that Lot’s family was spared for they, like all the rest or those inhabitants, deserved destruction.  

God says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion (Romans 9:15),

These words declare in the plainest language that God has the right to give or withhold His mercy according to His sovereign will.

Pastor and teacher Alistair Begg writes “As the prerogative of life and death is vested in the monarch, so the Judge of all the earth has a right to spare or condemn the guilty, as may seem best in His sight. Men by their sins have forfeited all claim upon God; they deserve to perish for their sins-and if they all do so, they have no ground for complaint. If the Lord steps in to save any, He may do so if the ends of justice are not thwarted, but if He judges it best to leave the condemned to suffer the righteous sentence none may call Him to account” "The Humbling Doctrine of Election,"  Alistair Begg, November 25, from the internet)

The fact is we all deserve to die. Paul writes, “There is none that is righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10).

Salvation has never been the result of our works or of our deeds (Eph. 2:-8-9 , Romans 3:19-28). Our salvation is all the result of his sovereign mercy.

It was only God’s grace and mercy that saved Lot and his daughters (Lot’s wife looked back and was turned to a pillar of salt) and it is only His mercy that saves us today.

Begg concludes “If we are (among) the saved we have no room for boasting, for (His) sovereignty most effectively excludes it.

If you are saved like Lot, rejoice, but remember it only because of His grace and mercy, and not because of your goodness and merit.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom