Sermon Text: Genesis 18:9-15, 22-26, 19:23-29

Gen. 18:9 They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.”
Gen. 18:10 The LORD said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.
Gen. 18:11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.
Gen. 18:12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”
Gen. 18:13 The LORD said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’
Gen. 18:14 Is anything too hard* for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Gen. 18:15 But Sarah denied it,* saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. He said, “No, but you did laugh.”

Gen. 18:22 So the men turned from there and went toward Sodom, but Abraham jstill stood before the LORD.
Gen. 18:23 Then Abraham drew near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
Gen. 18:24 Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city. Will you then sweep away the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it?
Gen. 18:25 Far be it from you to do such a thing, to put the righteous to death with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”
Gen. 18:26 And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

Gen. 19:23 The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar.
Gen. 19:24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the LORD out of heaven.
Gen. 19:25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
Gen. 19:26 But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.
Gen. 19:27 And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the LORD.
Gen. 19:28 And he looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and he looked and, behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.
Gen. 19:29 So it was that, when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.