sermon: Righteous Lot?
Becoming 'Christ Righteous'
Bill Onisick
Given 22-Mar-25; Sermon #1809B; 42 minutes
Description: (show)
In Leviticus 19:15 and 19:35 we are commanded, "In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor." Verse 15 clarifies, "You shall do no injustice in judgment."
The question I have for all of us is, how righteous is our judgment?
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.
Now, at first, Lot lived outside the city in a tent, but at some point, we do not know when, he made the decision to settle in that city with his wife, where they likely raised their children. We do not know where Lot met his wife nor why they chose to dwell in such a wicked city. But the men of the city described Lot later on as someone who came to stay in the city and continually acted as a judge. This leads us to one of the most troubling scriptures, it is troubling for me at least.
Genesis 19:4 The men of the [entire] city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people [it says] from every quarter, surrounded [Lot's] house.
All the people surround Lot's house, young and old, and in lust, they are demanding him to send out the two visiting angels that were in the form of men. Lot pleads with them, "do not do so wickedly," he says. And then, in Genesis 19:8, we are going to read Lot's proposed compromise. It is hard to read.
Genesis 19:8 "See now, I have two daughters who have not known a man; please, let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you wish; but do nothing to these men, . . .
Genesis 19:9 And they said, "Stand back!" [These are the men saying this.] Then they said, "This one came in here to stay here, and he keeps acting as a judge. Now we will deal worse with you than with them." So they pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door.
We know the story pretty well. Fortunately, the angels intervene. The angels pull Lot into the house and they rescue him and his daughters as they blind the men. The angels then tell Lot he needs to gather his family and get out of that wicked city immediately. But Lot delays his departure and the angels have to finally grab his hand and literally pull him and his wife and two daughters out of the city. We know his wife lags further behind, ends up becoming a pillar of salt as the entire cities are destroyed. Only Lot and his two daughters just barely escape.
Genesis 19:29 And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham [God remembered Abraham], and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in which Lot had dwelt.
God remembered Abraham. Let us hold on to that as we will revisit later.
Let us please turn to II Peter 2. Now, based on the evidence we read in Genesis, what is our judgment of Lot? We do not think too highly of him, do we? If we were in charge, would we have saved him? It is an interesting question. Would our judgment have been righteous?
Now later in Genesis 19:30-38, we find even more disturbing scriptures about Lot. His two daughters overserve him wine and thereby conceive through incest. Again, what is our judgment of Lot?
II Peter 2:4-5 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; . . .
We will stop there for a minute. So we read here that our holy God cannot tolerate sin. He is a righteous judge. Psalm 11:7 and 146:8 declare, "For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness"; "The Lord loves the righteous." We could add Psalm 5:12, "For you, O Lord, will bless the righteous." or Psalm 34:15 (we actually see this repeated in I Peter 3), "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry."
In II Peter 2:5, God saved only Noah, the preacher of righteousness, and his family from the Flood. And we see the Greek noun here, it is Strong's #1343. It is a bit of a doozy. dikaiosuné, translated righteousness all 92 times in the New King James. It is from an underlying adjective that means righteous. It is the underlying adjective version is Strong's 1342. dikaios, meaning righteous, upright, just, innocent, thoughtless, and guiltless. And we see these same words used in Revelation 15:3; 16:5 and 7; and 19:2 to describe our very great God: "Just and true are Your ways"; "You are righteous, O Lord. . . . True and righteous are Your judgments"; "For true and righteous are His judgments" those scriptures read.
Let us pick up now God's judgment in verses 6 through 8, this time on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
II Peter 2:6-8 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked (for that righteous man [Lot], dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds).
Now, despite some of the most disturbing scriptures in Genesis 19, we read here in II Peter 2:7 that God delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked. And again, we see the underlying Greek adjective form for righteous here, Strong's #1342 dikaios is used twice. It is used twice to describe Lot. The same word in Revelation describing God as righteous is used to describe Lot. I found that troublesome at first, I have got to tell you.
Is our judgment of Lot righteous? Only God could see Lot's righteousness as He judged his heart.
Lot was actually oppressed and afflicted with the evil that surrounded him we read here. He was a righteous man, verse 8 tells us, dwelling among the evil. He was actually tormented daily by their lawless deeds, and the use of the word torment here should bring a significant description on Lot's pain. It is the same word we see in Revelation 9:5 and 14:10. I will read those. Same word here for torment.
Revelation 9:5 And they were not given authority to kill them, but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man.
Revelation 14:10 He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
Lot was under some constant pain here we read. He was in distress, being surrounded by such sin. And as the men said, he was trying to be a bit of a positive influence. He was judging them and they did not like it. He was telling them their sin was wrong, but clearly was not too successful a preacher.
Now, no doubt, he should have removed himself and his family from that city long ago. He made a lot (no pun intended this time) of mistakes like panicking and offering up his daughters in an attempt to save the angels. And our first reaction to Peter's description, I had this one, was surprise. We probably thought, "Man, Peter, you're off your rocker. What are you thinking? Lot righteous? That doesn't add up." But the repetition and the words used make it very clear. Lot was indeed, in the end, righteous in God's eyes.
The title of this message is "Righteous Lot?" And our SPS, or desired outcome from the message: an increased understanding of God's righteousness, God's righteous judgment, and our calling to become righteous while avoiding self-righteous judgment.
Now, let us read on here in II Peter 2:9.
II Peter 2:9-10 Then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries [of those in charge].
And I could tie right into Ryan's message, no pride, no problem.
In this section on God's righteous judgment, we learn only the righteous Judge knows how to deliver His people from sin. It is not something we can do for each other. God will bring His righteous judgment and punishment on the unjust in His due time, and His judgment will be especially hard, brethren, on any that despise or reject or despise in any way, authority. "No pride, no problem." Judgment is coming on anyone that speaks evil of those in charge.
We must be very careful—and I mean very careful—about how we treat God's ordained ministers. Seeing is submitting. If we have faith in God, we have faith that He has put those in charge that He wants in charge and we submit in humility, we respect and obey all those He has put in command.
Now only the righteous in God's eyes will be saved, is what we can take away from this scripture in II Peter. From the entire ancient world, God saved only Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and his family from the Flood. From the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, God saved only righteous Lot and his two daughters.
But what is righteousness? The modern word righteousness (English), comes from the Old English word, right wise. That is spelled rihtwis, it is a combination of right and wise. And it makes a lot of sense when we think about righteousness as being right and wise. The spelling was actually changed in the 16th century to how we see it spelled today.
Righteousness requires godly wisdom to enable three things: right thinking, right attitude, and right doing. As we read earlier, God is righteous and righteousness is measured in terms of being right like Him. In a nutshell, righteousness is being in a right standing and right relationship with the righteous God. It is that simple—and difficult.
Please turn to Psalm 119. Now, godly righteousness requires God's calling and His Holy Spirit to enable right thinking, right attitude, and right doing.
First, the right thinking. We have to come to know God, to have faith in God, and learn God's law and His wisdom to properly apply God's law, both letter and spirit of His law, as we repent of our sins. Second, we have to have the right attitude (again tying right back into Ryan's message, no pride, no problem), to maintain a spirit of humility, recognizing only God is truly righteous, and we can never earn righteous standing. This humble attitude helps us control our thoughts, our pride, and our emotions, and it helps us to submit to others. And three, right doing to produce the fruit of righteousness, which we are told over and over produces the peace, the fruit of righteousness creates peace with God and each other.
Psalm 119:171-172 My lips shall utter praise, for You teach me Your statutes. My tongue shall speak of Your word, for all Your commandments are righteousness.
God teaches through His Word, all His commandments are righteousness. The use of all here makes it clear, it denotes all of the Ten Commandments, but also the entirety of God's instruction. In fact, if we had time and went back and read even the first ten verses of this psalm, Psalm 119, we would see many positive and negative statements that described God's righteousness. Way, walk, seek, law, testimonies, no iniquity, His ways, precepts, statutes, commandments, judgments, word. All of those are just different ways of describing God's righteousness.
Righteousness or right doing requires a lot more than just avoiding wrongdoing. It is very true that not obeying God's commandments is sin and all unrighteousness is sin, as we read in I John 5:17. Avoiding wrongdoing is a necessary step toward righteousness, but that is only half of righteousness. Righteousness requires right doing, not just avoiding sin. Righteousness requires both avoiding all wrongdoing and pursuing all right doing through good works.
God's righteousness means He is always perfectly just, holy, and fair in His actions and His decisions. Psalm 145:17 reads, "The Lord is righteous in all His ways." If we describe God's righteousness merely as obedience to the letter of the law, we have severely diminished God's greatness. For if God was solely interested in strict obedience and punishment for breaking His law, we have no hope. There is no hope. If all God was going to do is strictly adhere to the law and the punishment for what we deserve for breaking the law, we are dead. If He was solely about avoiding all unrighteousness, He would never reach out to us, sinners, and try to call us into a relationship with Him. That is His right doing, not just avoiding wrongdoing. That is God's right doing that has Him reach out to us when we do not deserve it.
Romans 5:7-8 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die [Paul adds]; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We could tie this to Romans 3:21-26. I am going to summarize this, but I encourage you to go and read these scriptures.
The righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, even the righteousness of God through the faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, who God set forth as a propitiation by His blood through faith to demonstrate what? To demonstrate His righteousness. Not our righteousness, to demonstrate His righteousness. He repeats, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness. We can tie this back to Craig's message as well.
The letter of the law is absolutely critical, but it is only half of God's righteousness. He is always focused on right doing. We read this in Acts 10:38. God anointed Jesus Christ of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing what? He went about doing good. Not just avoiding bad, He went about doing good. Jesus states in Matthew 5:20, "Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven."
And I think sometimes we dismiss this a bit, like perhaps we dismissed the Pharisees and think, well, they really were not good keepers of the law, but Jesus is clearly saying they had a level of righteousness here. But they were solely focused on the negative side of avoiding all wrongdoing, and they totally missed the positive side of right doing. They were so focused on righteousness by merit, they became a self-righteous, superior being in their own mind. The pride puff them up and they developed this self-righteousness. We can tie into the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. They actually thought they could be righteous judges of others, and they became separatists. They decided for themselves who was even worthy of their company. They would not hang out with this person or even talk to that person because they were sinners.
In Matthew 23, Jesus condemned them in the "woe" statements and wow, does He hit them hard. I mean, if you really think about Jesus' words to the Pharisees, it should scare us to death if we ever even thought about becoming self-righteous like them. He says they neglected the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faith.
Righteousness is being in a right standing and a right relationship with God. Being right with God and others requires personal sacrifices and right doing to produce good fruit. Not just avoiding bad fruit, producing good fruit. Jesus Christ says over and over and over a good tree does what? It produces no bad fruit and it produces a whole lot of good fruit each and every day.
Flip to Philippians 3 as we get some Monday morning quarterbacking from the eyes of a former Pharisee here. So remember, righteousness requires three things: right thinking, right attitude, and right doing. In Philippians 3:4-6, Paul provides his credentials as a zealous Pharisee. He says concerning the righteousness within the law, he was blameless. What an audacious statement! Concerning the righteousness in the law, he was blameless, he says. But as he looks back on his former self-righteous self, he starts to repent here.
Philippians 3:8-11 Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Paul repented of his self-righteousness, and he now was seeking Christ's righteousness through fellowship of Christ's sufferings, being conformed to His death. He now realized that mere obedience to the law was required, but it could not create righteousness. And we could tie this to,
Romans 10:2-3 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.
Righteousness requires following Jesus Christ's example to sacrifice ourself and do good works. In all of Jesus' teachings, righteousness describes not only fasting and prayer, but giving generously, forgiving and serving others, and even loving our enemies. We see this clearly in the end time judgment found in Matthew 25. Jesus tells us what is going to separate the sheep from the goats in the end. Does He mention a whole lot of law keeping there? No, the righteous are not defined simply by keeping the commandments as required, but that is only half of God's righteousness.
The righteous are defined in the final judgment by those that love as God loves, those that sacrifice themselves to give of their possessions, their time. Those that do not judge others that did something wrong and visit those that were in prison, those that forgave offenses and gave of themselves to submit and serve each and every need of the others.
Again, keeping of the law is absolutely required, brethren, but so is right doing. Law keeping, avoiding unrighteousness, avoiding wrongdoing is always required. But the other half of the righteousness equation is right doing, and this is what Jesus tells us truly separates the sheep from the goats. Jesus concludes in Matthew 25:46, that those that did not focus on the right doing go away into everlasting punishment. They missed the mark, but the righteous into eternal life.
Now we know we are called to be like our righteous God. We could jot down Matthew 5:6 and 6:33 where Jesus Himself says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Verse 33, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."
Turn with me to James 3. And while you are turning, I will add a few from Paul in II Corinthians 9:10; Ephesians 5:9; Philippians 1:11; and II Timothy 2:22. "Increase the fruit of your righteousness," "for the fruit of the Spirit is all goodness, righteousness, and truth," "being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ." "Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace." And there is so many more, brethren. I mean, there are so many more that encourage us to pursue righteousness. James piles on in,
James 3:17-18 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Righteousness indeed requires avoiding wrongdoing and always seeking right doing. Righteousness requires right thinking, the right attitude of humility, and the right doing to produce the sacrificial fruits by removing the focus from ourselves and putting the focus on what we can do to help others. The good fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
Conflict, brethren, is not from God's righteousness. Conflict is a result of self-righteousness. No pride, no problem. We submit to each other. We sit down, we have a conversation, and we esteem others better than ourselves, recognizing that we are all unrighteous sinners, myself first and foremost.
We are called to become like our righteous God who always has the right thinking, the right attitude, and the right doing, and we must always work hard to forward our progress towards His righteousness, but we have to remember all the while we can never, ever achieve righteousness on our own merit. As we read in Isaiah 64:6, "our righteousness is like filthy rags." Romans 3:10 adds, "There is none righteous, no, not one." And in Psalms 14 and 53, we read, "The Lord looks down from heaven upon all men," and "there is none that does good, no, not one." It is not something we can achieve on our own, but we have to work towards it nonetheless.
Turn with me to Matthew 3 now. And as you are turning, I am going to read a prophetic scripture that actually points to what we are about to read in Matthew 3, and that is from Hosea 10.
Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourself righteousness; reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Hosea exhorts to people to break their hard, prideful attitude and humble their hearts to seek the Lord and to plant His good seeds of righteousness and mercy and love. For the Lord is coming to rain righteousness, he says. We could tie this to Psalm 72:6 and Isaiah 45:8.
Now, let us read the fulfillment of this prophecy. In Matthew 3:13, we find Jesus is approaching John the Baptist at the Jordan River. And He is approaching him to be baptized. Now, John, rightly so, tries to prevent Him at first saying, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm the one that should be baptized by You, not the other way around." And let us read what Jesus says now.
Matthew 3:15 But Jesus answered and said to him, "Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." Then he allowed Him.
So Jesus never sinned, but He went through the rite of baptism to show us the way to fulfill all righteousness. In this first use of the word righteousness in the New Testament, we read that Jesus fulfills, that is, He completes, He perfects all, not some, all righteousness. The only way we can become righteous is through Jesus Christ's sacrifice and His imputed righteousness in us.
In II Peter 2:4-10, we read that Peter confirmed our holy and righteous Judge cannot permit sin to go unpunished. He did not spare the angels, and He did not spare anyone from the Flood except Noah, the messenger of righteousness.
Now let us go back to Genesis 6 really quick as we start to tie this all together. We will pick up just a couple of scriptures here, and we are on our way home. This is perhaps one of the most important scriptures on righteousness.
Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
The key takeaway here is, before Noah did anything right, God first did the right doing. It was through God's unmerited mercy and love that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Nothing good happens in Noah's life if that right doing does not happen first from God.
Genesis 6:9 This is a genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.
This is the first use of the Hebrew adjective form of righteous. It is Strong's #6662, tsaddiq, and it is translated 163 times as righteous throughout the New King James, 42 times as just. We see it translated just here. They basically mean the same thing. And once as lawful. After Noah found grace in God's eyes, what happens? Noah was a righteous man. He was in right standing with God, walking with Him, but Noah had to do something too. What did Noah have to do?
Genesis 6:22 Thus Noah did according to all that God commanded him, so he did.
Noah listened. Once God called him, Noah responded in obedience to God's commandments.
Genesis 7:1 Then the Lord said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation."
And we could tie this to,
Hebrews 11:7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned [by God] of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Over to Genesis 15 now, as we start to conclude. Now, we are kind of coming full circle, getting close to the scriptures we read before about Lot. We will pick up just one here in Genesis 15. So as God brings Abraham outside, He points him up to the sky, and he has him look at all the innumerable stars, and He tells him, "So shall your descendants be."
Genesis 15:6 And he [Abraham] believed in the Lord, and He [the Lord] accounted it to him for righteousness.
First use of the noun form of righteousness in the Old Testament, Strong's #6666, tsedaqah. Abraham, just like Noah, just like every man before and after him, did not have righteousness until God imputed it to him. It is accounted, not earned righteousness that we receive through Jesus Christ.
Genesis 18:19 "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him."
Just as God saved only Noah, the preacher of righteousness, from the Flood, God spared only righteous Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah.
Genesis 19:29 . . . when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overflow.
I told you we would come back to that, that God remembered Abraham. What is this telling us? God is not pointing back to Abraham's request for intercession on Lot's behalf here. We are all judged on our own. We cannot pass righteousness from one person to another. So what is God pointing to here? He is pointing back to his covenant with Abraham. It is promised to all those of the faith that are the sons of Abraham, the spiritual sons of Abraham. We can jot down Galatians 3:9 and 13 through 14.
Lot was deemed righteous in the same way that Noah and Abraham were deemed righteous, were found righteous by believing and trusting in God. He, like all of us, are so far from perfect righteousness. He made many horrible, terrible mistakes. Again, just like each and every one of us make horrible mistakes just about every day. We can tie this right into Richard's recent message on David, a man after God's own heart, who made many terrible mistakes.
Paul summarizes this in Romans 4:3-6 and 22. "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." "To him who. . . believe on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness, apart from works [David knew how this worked]" Just as David also describes the blessedness of man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from the works, it reads, (verse 22), "And therefore 'it was accounted to him for righteousness.'"
So I ask, is our judgment of Lot righteous? We read another interesting detail. I passed over this so many times as I read through the scriptures in Genesis 19:19. Lot actually realized he was unworthy of God's forgiveness. He says, "Your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have increased your mercy which you have shown me by saving my life." Now maybe I kind of dismissed that because it is right after that that Lot basically says he was not satisfied where God wanted to send him. But nonetheless, we see that Lot recognized, he realized he was unworthy of being saved, just like we are all unworthy of being saved.
Jesus warns us in John 7:24, "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." He says in John 5:30, "I judge, and My judgment is righteous because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me." Jesus' judgment is righteous because He did not seek His own will. He sought the will of His father. Peter tells us in I Peter 2 that Jesus did not retaliate to those that did Him wrong, but committed Himself to Him, God the Father, who judges righteously.
So we are called to become just like our righteous God, and we have so many examples here. We just scratched the surface on this today. Righteousness, right wise, is right standing with God and requires three things: The right thinking, the right humble attitude, and the right doing. Becoming righteous like God is a very, very tall bar that requires avoiding all wrongdoing and sin, but also constantly seeking the right works of grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, and kindness. The fruit of righteousness is peace with God and each other. And as we read in,
Proverbs 4:18 The path of the righteous [just] is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter [and brighter until it reaches its full strength] unto the perfect day.
And that is what we are looking forward to, brethren. When we can be transformed and truly become like Christ through His imputed righteousness. We must work towards God's righteousness all the while realizing we can never achieve it on our own merit. Even at our best, our righteousness is but filthy rags in comparison. And knowing we are all unrighteous, how could we ever be a righteous judge of another person? Well, by definition, we cannot brethren.
We can judge situations, especially those that determine our thoughts, our attitudes, and our actions, but we can never allow Satan to convince us that our self-righteousness somehow enables us to make a righteous judgment on someone else. Yes, we can all see mistakes that people make. We all make mistakes every day. But unlike Jesus, we do not know what God's will is for that person. How could we seek it if we do not know it? Think about that. We cannot see inside their heart and mind. We do not know how much of God's Spirit He has given to them. We do not know how hard they are working to overcome or how repentant they are in their prayers to God.
Think about the example of Lot. Was our judgment of Lot righteous on the surface? Mine was not until I did this study. I will confess to you, I had it wrong. No pride, no problem.
If we have faith in God, we must submit to His ordained authority and never usurp the righteous Judge, trying to decide for ourselves who should or should not be in God's church. Jesus tells us in Matthew 13, He is the one that is going to do the sorting out. When the time is right, He is going to gather up all that offend and practice lawlessness. He is going to cast them out in the fire, and then—we are going to end on a very positive scripture.
Matthew 13:43 "Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
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