The Watchman’s Call

Guest (Male): Standing at the intersection of the word and the world, there is a clear sound for uncertain times. Welcome to The Watchman’s Call. Join us as we stand on the ramparts of scripture to examine the intersection of biblical prophecy and modern culture. The headlines are changing, but the blueprint has already been written. Listen as Pastor Andy Woods uncovers the prophetic significance of the world we live in. The Watchman’s Call starts now.

Dr. Andy Woods: Howdy everybody, Dr. Andy Woods here. I want to welcome you back to a brand-new series that we're doing here on The Watchman’s Call. The title of this series is The Days of Lot. We've done a prior series on the days of Noah. If I remember right, that was the first series that I did when we launched this broadcast, and I thought an appropriate follow-up would be the days of Lot.

Why would we be looking into the days of Lot? It's related to something Jesus said in Luke 17:28-30. Jesus says this: "It was the same as happened in the days of Lot. They were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, they were building. But on the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained down fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed."

Jesus was asked a question about what would be the sign of his coming and the end of the age. It's interesting to me how Jesus gives a very quick, terse, simple answer to that question. He basically does not talk here about a revival breaking out in the world before he comes back, although certainly God in His providence and sovereignty can send that. He just makes the simple statement that as it was in the days of Lot, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man. A little earlier in the passage, beginning around verse 26, he says as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man.

The better we understand the days of Lot and the days of Noah, the better we can ascertain whether we are close to the return of Christ or not. As I mentioned a little earlier, we've done a series on the days of Noah, and I want to supplement that series by introducing you to another mini-series: the days of Lot. Where in the Bible would we go to discover the days of Lot? That's the famous or maybe better said infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah that we read about in Genesis 18 and 19. What was happening in that city just prior to its destruction is essentially what the world itself is going to be like prior to the manifestation of the Son of Man in His second coming.

There's an interesting parallel passage found in the book of Revelation 11:8. It’s dealing with the two witnesses that will be killed in the city streets of Jerusalem, and it says this: "Their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is mystically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified." That's an obvious reference to the city of Jerusalem. It says where their Lord was crucified; that's where Jesus was crucified 2,000 years ago. When these two witnesses are killed, Jerusalem at that time is described mystically as Sodom and Egypt.

It will be the literal city of Jerusalem, no doubt, but that city at that time will be controlled by a couple of dominant forces: Egypt, referring to bondage or incarceration—we might think there of legalism—and then also it will be mystically controlled by the spirit of Sodom, and we think there of depravity and immorality. If it can get that bad in God's special city, the city of Jerusalem, how much worse is it going to be throughout other places of the world? This is why Jesus says if you want to know what it's going to be like when I come back, look at the days of Lot, which is what we are seeking to do in this series.

When we get a complete understanding of the days of Lot, we can get a complete picture of the climate of the world just before Jesus returns. It's based on that framework that I'm going to offer you these seven points. There are seven points, or we might better call these seven trends, happening in the days of Lot. I would argue that these seven trends happening in the days of Lot are the exact same trends that are happening right now, and that becomes another clue that we are moving very rapidly towards the revelation of the Son of Man. Obviously, in our first show together, we can't get through all seven, but what we don't complete we will complete in subsequent episodes.

The first trend that we see in the days of Lot is that there was just an insensitivity to the things of God. People were wrapped up in all kinds of things of the world, and God was a footnote in their lives; He was an afterthought in their lives. It's very akin to the doctrine of humanism. Humanism, I believe, has become the dominant religion of the United States of America when our Supreme Court pushed Bible reading and prayer out of the public schools in the '60s through some poor Supreme Court decisions. Don't get the idea that the public schools are neutral; nature abhors a vacuum. They brought in the doctrine of humanism.

Humanism worships man. Humanists have their own doctrinal statements. There's something called the Humanist Manifesto written in 1973. There's Humanism 2000, and they read like a doctrinal statement of a church. They set forth their propositions, and one of the things they say is man is the center of all things, and God, if he exists at all, is irrelevant. It's the worship of man, and that's essentially what the days of Lot were like. People were pursuing their own interests and their own activities, and God was nothing more than a footnote in their minds.

We see that in the passage that we just read in Luke 17:28-30. What were they doing in the days of Lot just before God rained down fire and brimstone and destroyed them all in Sodom and Gomorrah? What was it like on the eve of that judgment? People were, according to the passage, eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, and building. In and of themselves, is there anything wrong with those things? Is there anything wrong with eating and drinking? No, God ordained those things; He created them. Is there anything wrong with buying or selling or planting or building? No, God is very much interested in the doctrine of private property. Two of the Ten Commandments are "don't steal" and "don't covet."

When God gives a negative commandment, he's seeking to protect a positive principle, in this case, the doctrine of private property. Is there something wrong with marrying? No, God is the author of the first marriage going back to Genesis chapter 2. What was the problem with the behavior of these people? They were consumed with these things. These things had taken priority in their lives where they weren't thinking about God at all. These were people that were just wrapped up in the busyness of life. They were pursuing these things at the exclusion of God.

You have to look at our world today and our society and ask ourselves if the same kind of thing is happening. I would say to a large extent that it is. You go into a mall on Sunday morning and it's jam-packed, and you go into a typical church service and, to a large extent, the building, if you're fortunate, is half full. It's very common for young people to be brought up in church and then they leave and hit the college scene. It's very easy for them to get sucked away, pulled away into the things of the world, and church attendance becomes sort of a footnote or an afterthought. I can't tell you how many youth I know that grew up in our various churches that found themselves in that predicament.

Of course, when we become like that, we lose our purpose for living, and when we lose our purpose for living, which is to glorify God, we lose fulfillment. This is why I believe that there are so many unhappy, joyless people in our world today. They're living outside of their purpose. God created us to glorify Him. We glorify Him through various ways depending on how He's gifted us, but our purpose for existing is to glorify Him. God's purposes in human history are doxological, to glorify Himself, and when we are living within our purpose, we glorify God in our various endeavors, and that's where we are most fulfilled.

The biggest lie that I think Satan runs today is that you're really going to be happy without God, but the opposite is true. This is what Jesus said in John 10:10. He says, "The thief," that's a reference to Satan, "comes only to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly." That's God's purpose for our lives, not to destroy them but to bring them back to their original purpose. Here's something that Jesus said to the woman at the well. You remember she's the one that had five husbands, and her partner that she was currently with, she was not married to. Jesus calls her out on that.

She says to Jesus, "Sir, I perceive you are a prophet," and so she's moving in the right direction there. He wasn't just a prophet; He was the incarnate Son of God. In that conversation that we read about in John 4, here's what verses 13 and 14 say as Jesus speaks to this woman at the well, the woman that was trying to fill the God-shaped vacuum within her through all of these immoral relationships that she was having. It says, "Jesus answered and said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give to him shall never thirst. But the water I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.'"

Jesus is telling her if you continue down the path that you're going, you're going to be unfulfilled. If you drink from that well, you'll be thirsty again. Trying to fill the God-shaped vacuum inside of us that all of us have with either power, pleasure, or prosperity, you're ultimately going to be unhappy. But if you come to me and you live for the purpose that I give you, then you will find fulfillment. The people in the days of Lot, unfortunately, were not doing that. They pushed God out of their lives. They were pursuing all kinds of things at the expense of God, to the exclusion of God, and so what had set in just prior to Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction was a general insensitivity to the things of God.

Let me take you to another trend that was happening in the days of Lot just prior to Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction. The people at that time were enjoying a great material prosperity. We read this in the book of Ezekiel 16:49: "Now your older sister Samaria, who lives north of you with her daughters, and your younger sister who lives south of you is Sodom with her daughters." Then Ezekiel starts to talk about Sodom and Gomorrah. He says this in Ezekiel 16:49: "Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom. She and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and the needy."

These were people who achieved a certain level of prosperity. They were sort of alleviated from something that most of the world has had to deal with, struggling just to survive economically. You remember all the way back in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:19, as part of the curse related to the fall of man, God said you will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow. In other words, you have to work to eke out a living, and that can become difficult. But here were people that were sort of exonerated from that, exempted from that. They didn't have to worry themselves over where their next meal was coming from because prosperity had broken out in Sodom and Gomorrah. This was not a poor part of the world; this was a very rich part of the world.

There's something in the Bible that I like to call the curse of prosperity. We all think if I can just become prosperous, all my problems in life would cease, and that may be true to some extent. There are certain problems that disappear when you become prosperous, and what I mean by prosperous is having more than what you need. But at the same time, there are certain problems that accompany prosperity as well. One of those is pride, where we have a tendency to push God out of our lives. Here's what we read in the book of Deuteronomy 8:11-14 as the nation of Israel was about to enter Canaan.

God says to the children of Israel, "Now you're going to go into this land, and you're going to become very prosperous. But the problem is as you become prosperous, there's going to be a tendency for you to forget the God that gave you the prosperity." Deuteronomy 8:11-14: "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today. Otherwise, you may have eaten and are satisfied and have built houses and lived in them. And when your herds and flocks multiply, your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery."

We see the curse of prosperity not only in the Old Testament but we see it in the New Testament. The last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, was written to Laodicea, the church at Laodicea, where Jesus rebukes or corrects this church. He says in Revelation 3:17, "Because you say, 'I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing,' yet you do not realize that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." They were rich to the point that they forgot God. The rich have always had a difficulty with entering the kingdom of God. Remember the rich young ruler? That story is recorded for us in Mark 10.

Jesus said to him in Mark 10:21, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, but you will have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me." Mark 10:22: "But at these words he," that's the rich young ruler, "was saddened and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property." Verse 23: "And Jesus, looking around, says to his disciples, 'How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God.'" I would call this the curse of prosperity, the tendency to forget God as we become prosperous.

One of the problems with prosperity is you have more time on your hands because you're not busy eking out a living, and that gives the sin nature more opportunity to express itself. There's more of an opportunity to explore sinful desires. Look no further than Solomon. This is what we read about Solomon in 1 Kings 10:21. He enjoyed tremendous prosperity. It said all King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None was of silver; it was not considered valuable in the days of Solomon.

First Kings 10:23: "So Solomon became greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom." But very sadly, in the next chapter, he didn't follow wisdom. We read these words in 1 Kings 11:4: "For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been." Solomon became very, very wealthy, and with wealth came the opportunity to explore the impulses of the sin nature. He took on many wives from foreign countries, and they came with their foreign gods and turned his heart away from following God. This is what I mean by the curse of prosperity. Leisure can be lethal in that sense. First Timothy 6:10 says for the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.

Money is not the problem; it's the love of money that is the problem. Prosperity can be a problem in the sense that now the sin nature has many avenues for exploration that it didn't have before. More time to watch movies that maybe we shouldn't watch, more time to surf websites and the internet and go places that probably we shouldn't go and that are un-Christian in their manifestation, orientation, and their nature. And so this is what the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah were experiencing, and I believe it's just like that today. Did you know that in the United States of America, our middle class lives like the upper class when compared to most countries?